Many studies have found that obesity is associated with an increased risk for prostate cancer. Now a study suggests that the degree of risk may depend on where the fat is located. The study by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and published in the journal Cancer, included 1,832 Icelandic men.

Over an average of nine years of follow-up, they found 172 cancers of varying degrees of severity. They found that subcutaneous fat in the thighs was associated with fatal disease and that higher body mass index and waist circumference were associated with increased risk of both advanced and fatal cancer. Being overweight was not by itself associated with prostate cancer, but visceral fat was associated with advanced cancer, and more strongly in men with lower BMI than in those with higher BMI.

Cutting emissions can reduce deaths

Capping global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit will save thousands of lives by reducing the frequency of extreme heat waves, a study said. The risks posed by "extreme high temperatures" can be significantly lowered by reducing temperature rises by only a half a degree, said the study by the University of Bristol and published in "Science Advances." The researchers concluded that as many as 2,720 annual heat-related lives per city would be saved under a 1.5 degree warming scenario, compared with 1,980 if the world hits 2 degrees above preindustrial levels.

White, red meat and cholesterol levels

Many people choose white meat over red in the belief that white meat is less likely to lead to high cholesterol levels. But when it comes to cholesterol, there may be little difference between the two.

A study, in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, randomized 113 healthy adults, ages 21 to 65, to one of two diet programs. The first consumed a high-saturated-fat diet with 25% of energy coming from protein in three different sources for four weeks each: red meat, white meat and nonmeat. The second did the same three-part program while on a low-saturated-fat diet.

As expected, the high-saturated-fat diets resulted in higher LDL (or "bad" cholesterol) than the low-saturated-fat diets. And both of the meat diets resulted in higher levels of LDL and total cholesterol than the vegetable-based diets.

But in either high- or low-saturated-fat programs, red meat and white meat resulted in the same levels of LDL and total cholesterol. There was no benefit in sticking to white meat, said the senior author, Ronald M. Krauss, a senior scientist at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute.

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