A new British study based on a review of 18 previous studies, which represent the vast majority of research on the subject, comes to the conclusion that the risk of prostate cancer is not related to the amount of sex hormones in the blood stream.  The study author, Andrew Roddam, Cancer Research UK Epidemiology Unit, University of Oxford, said that the study indicated that the natural variation in the levels of sex hormones in the blood were probably not indicators of the future risk of prostate cancer. 

Prostate cancer is encountered more often in men over fifty and while there are no easily identifiable risk factors apart from age and family history, it has long been thought possible that circulating levels of sex hormones might be a factor.  The team analised research that had been carried out between 1961 and 2001 involving over 10,000 men who either had or did not have the disease.  They adjusted the data for factors that might influence the outcome such as weight, marital and educational status, consumption of alcohol and tobacco, and could find no correlation between circulating sex hormone levels and subsequent diagnosis of the disease.  It was also found that there was no relationship between a very high or low level of any particular hormone level and the future risk of being diagnosed with the disease.

It is thought that these results may lead to a new direction of research into the causes of prostate cancer with assessment of the factors that can be varied during life such as diet.  This does not however mean that sex hormones are definitely not involved according to some sources, just that they are not a good way to predict statistical outcomes for the disease.  There seems to be plenty of work still to do.