Although
prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed
cancer among men in developed populations, recent recommendations against routine
prostate-specific antigen screening have cast doubt on its utility for early detection. We compared the metabolomic profiles of prospectively collected fasting serum from 74
prostate cancer cases and 74 controls selected from the
Alpha-Tocopherol,
Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention Study cohort of male smokers. Circulating 1-stearoylglycerol (1-SG, or 1-monostearin) was statistically significantly inversely associated with risk of
prostate cancer after Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons (i.e., 420 identified metabolites) (OR=0.34, 95% CI=0.20 - 0.58, p=6.3 × 10-5). The magnitude of this association did not differ by disease aggressiveness and was observed for cases diagnosed up to 23 years after blood collection. Similar but somewhat weaker
prostate cancer risk signals were also evident for
glycerol and
alpha-ketoglutarate. In this population, men with higher serum 1-SG were less likely to develop
prostate cancer, supporting a role for dysregulation of lipid metabolism in this
malignancy. Additional studies are needed to retest the association and to examine 1-SG for its potential as a
prostate cancer early detection marker.