Five years after IMRT

ob66 said:

Doctor/Lawyer Kongo
It is so interesting that GLM brought up the doctor/lawyer thing, for my wife and I have enjoyed Kongo's well informed and written posts for as long as we have visited this site, and both of us had conjured that you were a doctor, Kongo. I think it is the way you give your advice with such authority that gave us that impression along with you knowledge of some not too widely used terminology. Well, we were wrong. One question I have Kongo, is that you emphasize the non dairy, non red meat dietary approach and seem to espouse it very strongly. You do so to the point that any dairy or red meat usage I entertain is done with guilt. Yet, at the same time, you are somewhat casual about exercise. Since I am much the reverse, I wonder why someone who is so committed to diet, is not so much so to exercise??? Answer only if you care to, for it is really none of my business, but I would have guessed a stronger exercise program from someone so committed to diet. Wondering minds can be dangerous.

Wondering Minds
Ob,

I had to smile when I read your post. Certainly no white jackets in my closet, as long as we don’t count the white dinner jacket I wear about once every two years. I don’t mean to sound heavy and don’t want anyone to misconstrue any advice so maybe I should “dumb it down” a bit. What do you think? And I am so sorry if I made you feel guilty about that nice cold glass of milk with your pancakes but I’m secretly delighted that you’re thinking about it.

You DID make me feel guilty about the exercise and my seemingly casual approach to fitness. I really do think it is very, very important, particularly for those of us with cancer. I suppose that it’s one of my many failings that I can’t seem to muster the same energy toward a healthy exercise regimen as I do about other things. I know I should, I wish I could, and I have all the best intentions to do something in that area soon and it’s not that I am a complete slug. My most often used feeble excuse is that I do travel a lot and although some trips are longer than others it’s hard to get into a routine. But all my hotels have gyms so that excuse isn’t a very good one. I used to be a distance runner and logged 9-10 miles a day but a couple of moves, job changes, and schedule changes put it in the “too hard” category, but I know that’s just another excuse too. Thanks for making me face that aspect more realistically.

I came into the diary thing in an interesting way. In the late 90s I had lunch with a woman in London who had just finished a book about her struggle with breast cancer and was meeting with my friend, a literary agent at his club just off Leicester Square in the West End. In any event we all had a long lunch and I heard first hand of how she beat breast cancer after a double mastectomy, radiation, other operations, chemotherapy and so forth. At the end a large, cancerous lump began growing in her neck and they basically gave her a month to live. She used her background to try to figure out why Chinese women don’t get breast cancer, at least at anywhere near the rates they do in the West, and identified dairy as the biggest difference in diets. She eliminated dairy and in six weeks her cancer had disappeared and hasn’t returned. My initial reaction was pretty much skeptical and “miracles happen” but she was so well credentialed, so well spoken, and so deeply passionate in an endearing way that I remembered her quite clearly ever since and kept a copy of her book. When I was diagnosed, I recalled our lunch and wondered how she was doing and discovered she is still going stronger than ever and has also published a book about prostate cancer and the correlation of dairy to both breast and prostate cancer which she termed “brother-sister” diseases. I got the prostate cancer book and re-read her breast cancer book and became a believer. I find it much easier to believe when something is affecting you personally. Her name is Professor Jane Plant and I commend her books to you without reservation. You can find her on Amazon. Basically, her premise is that while milk is great for baby cows, we don’t need milk at all after weaning and that the chemical makeup and enzymes in dairy and cattle products contain growth factors and hormones that are like candy to cancer.

I also wondered about why the Chinese didn’t do dairy. Why was it that Western populations eat milk, cheese, yogurt, and so on it ever increasing quantities but yet the Chinese, other Asian cultures, and others in a few other parts of the world do not. I recalled a book I read several years ago by Jared Diamond called “Guns, Germs, and Steel” that basically examined the reasons why Western Civilizations ended up invading the New World and not the other way around. Part of the discussion concerns the domestication of animals and the effect that had on incumbent civilizations. Cattle were domesticated about 7,000 years ago in the Indus Valley and the cattle and dairy industry basically spread from there into Western and Northern Europe. There never were any cattle species in China that were suitable for domestication so they never developed cattle as a protein source from either meat or dairy. They domesticated ducks, pigs, geese, and some other fowl but no cattle. It wasn’t till much later in history, less than 1,000 years ago, that any cattle were introduced to China and by then the culture revolved around soy, supposed domesticated by a mythical Chinese Emperor named Shennong (I think it means Divine Farmer) about 5,000 years ago. Today, the Chinese consider dairy products “baby food.” Interestingly, as their diet has become more Westernized in the past generation, prostate cancer and breast cancer, particularly in urban areas, is increasing significantly.

Anyway, that’s how I got onto the dairy thing. I’m not some mad cow wacko…and if I had never met Professor Jane Plant, I would still be putting extra cheese on just about everything and drinking a couple of glasses of milk a day. If you work on your dairy, I’ll work on my exercise.

Kongo said:

Wondering Minds
Ob,

I had to smile when I read your post. Certainly no white jackets in my closet, as long as we don’t count the white dinner jacket I wear about once every two years. I don’t mean to sound heavy and don’t want anyone to misconstrue any advice so maybe I should “dumb it down” a bit. What do you think? And I am so sorry if I made you feel guilty about that nice cold glass of milk with your pancakes but I’m secretly delighted that you’re thinking about it.

You DID make me feel guilty about the exercise and my seemingly casual approach to fitness. I really do think it is very, very important, particularly for those of us with cancer. I suppose that it’s one of my many failings that I can’t seem to muster the same energy toward a healthy exercise regimen as I do about other things. I know I should, I wish I could, and I have all the best intentions to do something in that area soon and it’s not that I am a complete slug. My most often used feeble excuse is that I do travel a lot and although some trips are longer than others it’s hard to get into a routine. But all my hotels have gyms so that excuse isn’t a very good one. I used to be a distance runner and logged 9-10 miles a day but a couple of moves, job changes, and schedule changes put it in the “too hard” category, but I know that’s just another excuse too. Thanks for making me face that aspect more realistically.

I came into the diary thing in an interesting way. In the late 90s I had lunch with a woman in London who had just finished a book about her struggle with breast cancer and was meeting with my friend, a literary agent at his club just off Leicester Square in the West End. In any event we all had a long lunch and I heard first hand of how she beat breast cancer after a double mastectomy, radiation, other operations, chemotherapy and so forth. At the end a large, cancerous lump began growing in her neck and they basically gave her a month to live. She used her background to try to figure out why Chinese women don’t get breast cancer, at least at anywhere near the rates they do in the West, and identified dairy as the biggest difference in diets. She eliminated dairy and in six weeks her cancer had disappeared and hasn’t returned. My initial reaction was pretty much skeptical and “miracles happen” but she was so well credentialed, so well spoken, and so deeply passionate in an endearing way that I remembered her quite clearly ever since and kept a copy of her book. When I was diagnosed, I recalled our lunch and wondered how she was doing and discovered she is still going stronger than ever and has also published a book about prostate cancer and the correlation of dairy to both breast and prostate cancer which she termed “brother-sister” diseases. I got the prostate cancer book and re-read her breast cancer book and became a believer. I find it much easier to believe when something is affecting you personally. Her name is Professor Jane Plant and I commend her books to you without reservation. You can find her on Amazon. Basically, her premise is that while milk is great for baby cows, we don’t need milk at all after weaning and that the chemical makeup and enzymes in dairy and cattle products contain growth factors and hormones that are like candy to cancer.

I also wondered about why the Chinese didn’t do dairy. Why was it that Western populations eat milk, cheese, yogurt, and so on it ever increasing quantities but yet the Chinese, other Asian cultures, and others in a few other parts of the world do not. I recalled a book I read several years ago by Jared Diamond called “Guns, Germs, and Steel” that basically examined the reasons why Western Civilizations ended up invading the New World and not the other way around. Part of the discussion concerns the domestication of animals and the effect that had on incumbent civilizations. Cattle were domesticated about 7,000 years ago in the Indus Valley and the cattle and dairy industry basically spread from there into Western and Northern Europe. There never were any cattle species in China that were suitable for domestication so they never developed cattle as a protein source from either meat or dairy. They domesticated ducks, pigs, geese, and some other fowl but no cattle. It wasn’t till much later in history, less than 1,000 years ago, that any cattle were introduced to China and by then the culture revolved around soy, supposed domesticated by a mythical Chinese Emperor named Shennong (I think it means Divine Farmer) about 5,000 years ago. Today, the Chinese consider dairy products “baby food.” Interestingly, as their diet has become more Westernized in the past generation, prostate cancer and breast cancer, particularly in urban areas, is increasing significantly.

Anyway, that’s how I got onto the dairy thing. I’m not some mad cow wacko…and if I had never met Professor Jane Plant, I would still be putting extra cheese on just about everything and drinking a couple of glasses of milk a day. If you work on your dairy, I’ll work on my exercise.

To our mutual benefit
I will work on my dairy/red meat....The challenge is not a betting/punitive one, but one that will help us both, hopefully....And please, please, do not dumb down any of your future posts, or I will not only miss your prose but have most of this board after my carcass.....So, cheers to Professor Jane Plant, and we shall check in on each other periodically...Bob

G.L.M_61 said:

Treatments / Kongo
I thought that "proton" radiation was the best, however super expensive and at that time, I think there were only two of them in the country?
Moving on, I did have a prostate biopsey and 1 out of 12 samples detected Pca. So the urologist said after sending the samples from Garland , TX to his own lab in San Antonio,and I waited two weeks for the results.I did meet another man with the same scenario, he did not want to talk about it at all, actually his wife told me to never bring up the subjuect to him, so I did not.
Are you telling me that my cancer could have spread to other parts of my body even if it was not in my prostate anymore? and that is is still refered to as Pca. where ever it is? Is this is why they want me to have that bone scan, correct?

Email
I sent you an email with my phone number.