High blood pressure increases a man's risk of dying from prostate cancer, a study has shown.
Researchers found men with the highest blood pressure levels were 62% more likely to die from the disease than those with the lowest.
A weaker association was also seen with obesity and a combination of different factors, including blood sugar and cholesterol.
The Metabolic Syndrome and Cancer (MeCan) project looked at almost 300,000 men over a period of 12 years to investigate factors influencing prostate cancer incidence and death rates.
Some 6673 had prostate cancer and 961 died from the disease. The scientists assessed risk factors, including high body mass index (BMI), high blood pressure, and high levels of sugar and fats in the blood.
Dr Christel Haggstrom, from Umea University in Sweden, said: "When we looked to see if metabolic factors are related to an increased risk of getting or dying from prostate cancer we found a relationship with death from the disease and high blood pressure.
"There was also a link to high BMI but blood pressure had the strongest association to increased risk. I can't speculate on the reasons for the association between high blood pressure and dying from prostate cancer."
The study appeared in the American Cancer Society journal Cancer.
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