Incidence of prostate cancer according to metabolic health status: A nationwide cohort study

Background: We assessed the association between metabolic health status and incidence of prostate cancer using the National Health Check-ups (NHC) database of Korea. Methods: A total of 11,771,252 men who participated in the NHC between 2009 and 2012 and 56,552 men who were newly diagnosed with prostate cancer were analyzed. Normal-weight and obesity were defined as body mass index (BMI) < 25 kg/m ² and ≥25 kg/m ² , respectively. Metabolic obesity was defined as the presence ≥3 components of the metabolic syndrome. Participants were stratified into 4 groups: metabolically healthy, normal-weight; metabolically obese, normal-weight (MONW); metabolically healthy, obese (MHO); and metabolically obese, obese. Multivariate Cox regression analysis was performed to examine the relationship between metabolic health status and incidence of prostate cancer. Results: During a mean 5.4 ± 1.1 years of follow-up, 56,552 patients were registered with a diagnosis of prostate cancer. When analyzed according to metabolic health status classification, the multivariable-adjusted hazard ratio (HR) was 1.143 for the MONW group, 1.097 for the MHO group, showing the HR for the MONW group was higher than that for the MHO group. As the number of metabolic syndrome components increased, HR increased significantly. When stratified based on BMI, metabolically obese patients showed significantly higher HR than metabolically healthy patients in all BMI groups. Conclusion: This population-based nationwide study revealed an association between metabolic health status and the incidence of prostate cancer, and the risk increased according to the number of components of the metabolic syndrome.