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High-fat diet, obesity and prostate disease: the ATX–LPA axis?

Nature Reviews Urology volume 6, pages 128–131 (2009)Cite this article

With current trends towards increasingly sedentary lifestyles, and ever-increasing serving sizes of high-caloric foods, the prevalence of metabolic disorders, such as obesity and diabetes, is rising sharply in the general population in the developed world. Today, obesity is a major health concern, particularly in the US. According to 2006 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates, 32% of adults in the US were obese, and an alarming 17% of children and adolescents were overweight.1 Excessive body weight is now well known to predispose individuals to various chronic illnesses, including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and osteoarthritis, among others.

Concomitant with the increasing prevalence of metabolic disorders, a sharp rise in the incidence and mortality of prostate cancer has been seen in the western world. While the reasons for this increase remain unclear, numerous studies have highlighted obesity as a significant risk factor for several types of malignant2 and nonmalignant3 prostate tumors. Such an increase in incidence, often found to have doubled in less than two generations in certain populations, cannot be explained by genetic changes alone, and collective data from multiple studies suggest that diet and lifestyle might profoundly influence the pathogenesis of prostate disease. In this Viewpoint, we advance the hypothesis that the autotaxin–lysophosphatidic acid (ATX–LPA) axis represents a key mediator of the association between high-fat diet, obesity and prostate disease.

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Figure 1: The ATX–LPA axis, high-fat diet, obesity and prostate disease.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by a grant from the Safeway/Prostate Cancer Foundation Special Team Amplification of Research (STAR) Program.

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  1. P Kulkarni is an Associate Professor and RH Getzenberg is the Donald S Coffey Professor of Urology and Research Director at the James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.,

    Prakash Kulkarni & Robert H Getzenberg

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  1. Prakash Kulkarni
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  2. Robert H Getzenberg
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Correspondence to Robert H Getzenberg.

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Kulkarni, P., Getzenberg, R. High-fat diet, obesity and prostate disease: the ATX–LPA axis?. Nat Rev Urol 6, 128–131 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncpuro1311

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