At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill it has been carried out a study which shows that a high dietary intake of saturated fat is associated with a higher incidence of the more aggressive prostate cancers.

It was also seen that there exists a higher incidence among white Americans.
Saturated fats are commonly found in animal products, including meat and dairy products.
It is observed that the intake of saturated fats influence the levels of cholesterol, which, in turn, have been linked to the development of prostate cancer in epidemiological and laboratory studies.

So the team studied a possible link between prostate cancer and saturated fats, using data from the North Carolina-Louisiana Prostate Cancer Project, which enrolled 1,854 men with newly diagnosed prostate cancer.

This cohort included 321 men with prostate cancer “very aggressive” with a prostate-specific antigen level greater than 20 ng / mL.
The rest of the study were all men with intermediate and low-risk tumors, and were used as a reference group to examine the association between tertiles of fat intake and aggressive prostate cancer. Using basic information collected on the diet of each participant in the project, the researchers calculated the levels of saturated fat in the diet of every man.

In a secondary analysis, it is also calculated levels of mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated acids (PUFAs and monounsaturated fatty acids), those that are found in vegetable oils or fish, as well as the levels of cholesterol and trans fat and their relationship with aggressive prostate cancer.

There were no statistically significant associations between aggressive prostate cancer and the intake of PUFAs.

So it can be seen that a high total cholesterol level of intake has been associated with aggressive prostate cancer in white Americans This significant association was not seen in American blacks.

They found that the intake of saturated fat was associated with a higher risk of all-cause mortality, whereas consumption of vegetable fat was associated with a lower risk.
The men who consumed 10% less calories from animal fat and 10% more calories from vegetable fats after diagnosis had a risk of 44% lower mortality.