Truckers may be at higher risk of prostate cancer

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md., Oct. 30 (UPI) -- Men who work as truckers may be at higher risk for aggressive prostate cancer at time of diagnosis than men in other occupations, U.S. researchers suggest.

Researchers at the National Cancer Institute, the Louisiana State University School of Public Health, the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., analyzed medical records and other data from 2,132 men who were part of the North Carolina-Louisiana Prostate Cancer Project, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The men identified the two jobs they spent the most time in their careers, as well as their most recent job at the time of their diagnosis.

The researchers told the American Association for Cancer Research's International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research in National Harbor, Md., that men who said they spent more time driving a truck than any other occupation were nearly four times more likely than educators to be diagnosed with a prostate cancer considered highly aggressive.

The researchers hypothesized truckers might have increased prostate cancer risk because previous research found men who operated heavy machinery who experienced "whole-body vibration" routinely has increased risk of aggressive prostate cancer. Educators were considered to not experience similar vibrations and served as a control group.

The increased risk in truckers could be due to prostatitis -- inflammation of the prostate gland -- which might also be linked to prostate cancer, or perhaps the vibration leads to an increase in the body producing testosterone. Men with more testosterone have an increased risk of prostate cancer, the researchers said.