Eating mushrooms could reduce the risk of developing prostate cancer, study finds

mushroom
Image for representation purposes only. Reuters

A new study that spanned for more than 25 years has found that eating mushrooms regularly is capable of reducing the chances of developing prostate cancer.

The study conducted by researchers at Japan's Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine found that people who consume mushrooms regularly had a 17 percent less chance of developing prostate cancer when compared to other people who ate mushrooms less than once a week.

It should be noted that people who ate mushrooms less, say once or twice a week were still 8 percent less likely to develop the disease when compared to men who ate mushrooms very occasionally.

The study report published in the International Journal of Cancer reveals that prostate cancer is a very dangerous disease that usually gets triggered when the cells in the prostate gland start growing without any control. It should be noted that the prostate gland is present only in the male body, and it is responsible for producing semen.

During the study, researchers monitored 36,499 men aged between 40 and 79. The participants were asked to answer a questionnaire to get information about their living style, smoking and drinking habits, as well as their medical history.

The final results of the study revealed that mushroom intake has positive effect on humans to reduce the risk of developing prostate cancer.

"Test-tube studies and studies conducted on living organisms have shown that mushrooms have the potential to prevent prostate cancer. However, the relationship between mushroom consumption and incident prostate cancer in humans has never been investigated before. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first cohort study indicating the prostate cancer-preventive potential of mushrooms at a population level," said Shu Zhang, an assistant professor at the Tohoku University School of Public Health, Graduate School of Medicine in Japan and the lead author of the study in a recent statement.

This disease is responsible for killing an American in every 17 minutes, and in 2018 alone, more than a million Americans were diagnosed with this disease.

A few weeks back, another study report had suggested that Terazosin – a drug widely used to treat enlarged prostates can be used to slow down the progress of Parkinson's disease.

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