Men who present high levels of calcium in their bloodstream are more likely to be exposed to an increased risk of getting fatal prostate cancer, compared to men with less elevated levels of the mineral, researchers said today.

The results of an analysis from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the University of Wisconsin suggest that a regular blood test is able to recognize men at an elevated risk for the most hazardous prostate tumors.

To conduct the long-term study, researchers looked at blood samples collected from more than 2,800 men who got involved in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. After measuring the amount of calcium in the bloodstream of each participant, researchers concentrated on the 85 cases of prostate cancer and 25 cases of death caused by the same type of cancer, cases that were reported among the male participants.

It was found that men whose calcium levels ranked in the top third were almost 2.7 times as likely to have passed away from prostate cancer as men in the bottom third. The body weight, race, as well as age, explained the figure. 

"We show that men in upper range of the normal distribution of serum calcium subsequently have an almost threefold increased risk for fatal prostate cancer," according to Gary Schwartz, an associate professor of cancer biology and of epidemiology and prevention at Wake Forest.

In a telephone interview, he described this possibility of serum calcium actually rising a man’s risk for fatal prostate cancer as “wonderfully exciting,” because, he added, “serum calcium levels can be changed.” Indeed, medicines that have as effect decelerating blood calcium levels in the blood have been approved and put on the market. 

Fontus Pharmaceuticals Inc's Rocaltrol (calcitriol); Genzyme Corp's Hectorol (doxercalciferol); Abbott Laboratories' Zemplar (paricalcitol); and Amgen Inc's Sensipar (cinacalcet), are several drugs that help the human body control the levels of calcium.

As maintained by Halcyon Skinner, one of the study’s authors and a researcher at the School of Medicine and Public Health at Wisconsin, there is "little relationship between calcium in the diet and calcium in serum. So men needn't be concerned about reducing their ordinary dietary intakes of calcium."

Researchers found and wrote in the American Association for Cancer Research's journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention that the amount of calcium in the bloodstream didn’t show any link to nonlethal prostate cancer. The calcium level could only predict the fatal prostate cancer, a disease which occurs when cells of the prostate mutate and start multiplying out of control.

Another study should be conducted before doctors start prescribing drugs for men in order to change their blood calcium levels, Gary Schwartz stated.

The second most frequently diagnosed form of cancer in men across the world, prostate cancer usually develops after reaching the age of 50, the American Cancer Society said. It may trigger pain, erectile dysfunction, difficulty in urinating and many others symptoms. It is most common in black men, and least common in Asian ones, statistics show.