Diet to bring down PSA

randy_in_indy said:

Healthy Eating
I swear...you all are way healthier than I when it comes to your diet....I have never been one to follow all the healthy advice. I believe in moderation as a rule when it comes to everything....do I subscribe to it religiously...nope...I drink too much beer, eat too many dairy products....and probably too much fat....however...my great grandmother lived an excellent life...very much without doctors....she finally passed at 98. lived by herself alone in a house until she was about 89 or 90. I truly believe much of our health is inherited and by luck. Look at jim fix....represented the great running start for millions and died of too much cholestoral in arteries....something running should have fixed or at least put off....he died at 52. Eulle Gibbions the Grape Nut Health expert...died at 64 of complications of marfan syndrome, an inherited disorder. Something is going to get all of us at some point! I know I need to start changing my ways and start moving to the healthier choices. I need to read here more maybe that will motivate me.

To all who fight the beast....may your choice conquer!!

Randy in Indy

Scambuster said:

Great thread
Excuse the barge in but it was nice to see you getting good results with PSA, cholesterol etc from the change in diet. Isn't it just amazing that your doctors were surprised !! The reason is they still (in the majority) refuse to believe diet is critical for our health and recover from cancer and many other disease. The fact is, Doctors do not study nutrition and run by the drug company fed information. Sad but true. (Well actually it was shown they study about 8 hours of diet and nutrition in their entire formal medical training).

I am on the head & neck board. I am 15 months out now from treatment (Surgery/Rads Chemo), went Vegan and doing supplements and am doing very well though I have some nasty post radiation side effects but not as bad as many on my board. I am about the healthiest I have ever been.

As for the dairy and meats etc, the evidence is there that all animal protein is not so good for us, that includes eggs and fish. While most people get away with it and yes, many till they are in their 90's, The fact is we didn't, we got cancer, changes the picture, so maybe we should do everything possible to get rid of it and not to get a recurrence.

The way we metabolize animal protein leaves our bodies depleted in certain elements and enzymes as well as it leaving certain oxidases and other irritants which are know to be carcinogenic. They are very different to non animal proteins. If you have not read it yet, I would strongly suggest you read "The China Study' (Dr T. Colin Campbell). It will clarify exactly why you have all noticed changes in your health since you stopped dairy and cut down on meats.

He ran extensive experiments with rats on high diets of Milk Protein and it showed 100% causal to progress of cancer. When they reversed the diets, the cancer stopped and regressed. Quite remarkable. He then went on and undertook the largest ever statistical study of human diet and related disease, and showed the Western Diet to be ..well pretty bad and hence the very high rates of Cardio vascular disease, diabetes and Cancer, far greater than existed in China. As Chinese people introduced the Protein rich foods, guess what happened ? Give up ? Well of course the results showed a direct correlation with increase in CV Disease, Diabetes and cancer. These are know as 'Western Diseases' or 'Diseases of Affluence'.

I have an excerpt on my Blog of a key Chapter from the book and more info on my expression page.

The bad news is we probably should eliminate all animal protein (sorry guys, that also means eggs). As for the white breads, well all processed foods which include white rice, white pastas, white breads are all simple carbs and have had the goodness and fibre stripped away, so they convert to sugars very quickly and it is now known that cancer likes sugar. While they are not so bad for us, they just don't much that is good. Whole grain food is the way to go - these are complex carbs.

Back on the sugar, well, that is how they find it withe PET Scan, they piggy back the radioactive isotopes onto a sugar (FDG), inject into you and the tumors suck it up and it lights up on your scan. So we should give up free sugars - sugar is cancer food.

In general, process foods, free sugars, fried foods and animal proteins are stuff we should avoid. You would have to try this big change in diet to appreciate it. Some of you have already noticed a big change just from eliminating Dairy. A quick side note on dairy is firstly you don;t need it and can get all the calcium etc elsewhere and also consuming dairy actually blocks the absorption of calcium. That is why the countries with the highest rates of osteoporosis are also the countries with the highest consumption of Dairy. A little known fact and one the Dairy boards of the world don't really want to advertise.

It's not all bad, as there are plenty of good foods out there that are in fact all good for us. I hope you do check out the book. There is still too much resistance to using diet as major part of our treatment, recovery and survival by the main stream medical profession. As such, don't expect your doctor to give you accurate information about diet and nutrition. They treat cancer and most illnesses with intervention : Surgery and drugs. that's what they are trained in. Do yourselves a favor, read up as much about diet and nutrition in relation to your general health and especially cancer. Many adopt the 'Moderation and well my grandpa ate 20lb steaks every day etc and he lived till he was 110. I know, but each thing you do that is not so good for us, it changes the numbers and not in our favor.

Anyway, thank you for reading this far, and i hope you are inspired to rad further on the impact diet will have on your health. Take it step by step and increase the number improvements rather than the shock of a complete change if that eases the transition. Keep learning and don't tale any one article or book as the end game, read it all and the truth will emerge.

I wish you all long and healthy lives.

Scambuster

Beau2 said:

I also agree but ...
Hey Swing,

I'm just finishing the book "Ashes to Ashes, America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris".

When I read your post I was immediately struck by the similarity of you comments and the legal arguments presented by the tobacco industry in defence of cigarettes. Their arguments were (is) that no one "knows" what causes lung-cancer and that a lot of statistical correlations betwen smoking and lung cancer do not establish cause & effect.

I'm not saying you or the Tobacco Industry are wrong; however, I'd been thinking about the Tobacco Industries arguments and was surprised when I read you comments; they were so similar to theirs, and unfortunately apparently true. If only we knew the cause of cancer.

HeartofSoul said:

sugar is cancer food? So we
sugar is cancer food? So we should give up free sugars - sugar is cancer food.?

If sugar can cause cancer, then God help us as we would have tens of millions of people dx with cancer yearly. As it is now, 1.5 milion are dx a yr in US.


Cancer Loves Sugar – Truth or Rumor?
This familiar saying, "cancer loves sugar" has been around since the 1924 publication of Dr. Otto Warburg's paper, "On metabolism of tumors." Warburg was a Nobel Prize winning cell biologist who wrote, "Summarized in a few words, the prime cause of cancer is the replacement of the respiration of oxygen in normal body cells by a fermentation of sugar." Many people who referred to his work in later years misquoted Warburg's statement by saying, "cancer loves sugar."

Warburg's hypothesis stated that cancer growth was caused when cancer cells converted glucose into energy without using oxygen. Healthy cells make energy by converting pyruvate and oxygen. The pyruvate is oxidized within a healthy cell's mitochondria, and Warburg theorized that since cancer cells don't oxidize pyruvate, cancer must be considered a mitochondrial dysfunction.

Now that we know more about the genetics of cancer, we know that cancer is not a mitochondrial dysfunction, but is caused by genetic mutations, such as appear on the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2. It is true that healthy cells and cancer cells convert their food to energy in different ways, but that difference is an effect, and not a cause, of cancer.



Sugar and Cancer: Is There a Connection?
The facts about sugar and cancer can be confusing. They often are presented in a way that is misleading and anxiety-producing for people with cancer. However, if you learn a bit about the science behind the connections between what we eat and cancer risk, you can make wise nutrition choices for better health.

The concept that sugar feeds cancer is not useful. Sugar feeds every cell in our bodies. Our bodies need glucose, or simple sugar, for energy. Even if you cut every bit of sugar out of your diet, your body will make sugar from other sources, such as protein and fat.

So cancer cells need sugar to grow, just like healthy cells. It helps to remember that there is nothing particular about sugar that “feeds” cancer cells any more than sugar feeds all cells in our body.

Do I need to be concerned about sugar?
Even though sugar doesn’t exactly “feed” cancer cells, it is a good idea to limit the amount of simple sugar you eat. This is because when you eat a lot of sugar, your body produces a lot of insulin.

Insulin is a natural substance made by the body. Insulin can tell cells to grow. In simple terms, insulin can “rev up” cell growth. For healthy cells, this is a good thing. This is because the cells in your body grow, divide, die, and are replaced as part of the natural process of living. However, cancer cells can be encouraged to grow more, too, when our bodies produce too much insulin. So while some insulin in the body is normal, excess insulin may encourage cancer cells to grow more, which is not a good thing (1-6).

This is the downside of insulin: Our bodies need it to function, but it’s unhealthy if we make too much of it.

In summary, sugar does not “feed” cancer cells. However, a lot of sugar can cause our bodies to produce too much insulin, and this is not good for health.

Kongo said:

The recent posts on this thread exhibit a refreshing level of discourse with well articulated points of view that highlight the nuances of dealing with a cancer diagnosis.

We may never know for sure what causes our cancers but I personally don’t believe we will be able to pinpoint a single causative factor with any degree of certainty. In my own cancer journey I have become very suspicious of those who spout bumper sticker solutions to these very complex problems. Perhaps when we are conceived a process is launched that eventually results in our demise. Maybe there are an infinite number of environmental factors and lifestyle choices that combine to create varying levels of vulnerability. Maybe it’s all part of some master plan by our creator to teach us something in this life that we can’t yet comprehend. Maybe it is none of these things but whatever causes prostate cancer at this relatively mature stage of our lives we must all face fundamental decisions about how we choose to treat it (or not) and how we will live the rest of our days.

I think much of the hype surrounding diets and supplements are misplaced. We should not be treating PSA. Instead we should be treating the disease itself. We all know the nuances of what a PSA reading might mean. Is it before or after treatment? Did we have sex before the blood draw? Did we go bicycle riding or do we have a urinary tract infection? Is it an indolent form of cancer producing the antigen or a more sinister breed of cancer which has cells that are no longer capable of making PSA? Treating PSA is like the government giving unemployment benefits to those who have lost their jobs…it does something but fails to address the fundamental reasons for the loss of jobs in the first place.

My personal belief is that dairy in particular creates a chemical environment in our bodies where cancer is encouraged to grow beyond what our natural defense mechanisms can handle. I also think that too much red meat (or poultry or pork) from animals fattened in feed lots with artificially enhanced additives and growth hormones create similar chemical environments. The imbalance in our chemical stoichiometry has been shown to be related to Insulin Growth Factors (IGFs) which come from dairy products and to a lesser extent from the meat of the animals that provide our dairy products. In my own case, eliminating dairy resulted in a rapid decrease in my PSA readings and similar results have been experienced by countless others who embark on a no-dairy diet. I suspect that eliminating dairy brings the chemical balance around the prostate (or other areas where cancers form) back into a balance where our own immune system can contain or reduce the tumors and cancer cells that are producing the PSA. I disagree with doctors who dismiss dietary factors with condescending euphemisms. And I believe that some of these dietary choices can cause cancer to reverse itself. It is not just a scalpel or a radiation beam that can kill cancer.

As far as all the supplement cocktails others swear to, I just don’t know. My personal belief is that we shouldn’t need all of these supplements if our diet is balanced. It seems to me that the chemical interactions that surround the growth of healthy versus cancerous cells is just too complicated to state with any degree of certainty what any single supplement (much less a combination of supplements) might have on treating cancerous growths.

The other aspect of this is our whole approach to living with cancer. What Swing alluded to in his post was that his decisions about lifestyle choices trumps following a rigid vegan diet. I agree with Swing completely on this issue. We all made choices (either consciously or unconsciously) about how to treat our cancer based on our view of life and how we wanted to live after treatment. My personal view is that quality of life is more important to me than quantity of life. I suspect that Swing (and others) has reached similar conclusions. Others may choose quantity over quality with respect to life and that is fine too. We all have to make these choices and there is no right or wrong answer. At the end of the day, I believe that it is not how long we live that matters but rather how we choose to live and whether or not the world is a better place for our being here.

Personally I find it too hard, given the life I lead at present, to follow a purist diet such as some have described here. I do what works for me which is to avoid dairy, reduce meat consumption, increase soy intake, and try to exercise more and remain active. I too enjoy a tumbler of fine scotch (or a dirty Grey Goose martini), an occasional Cuban cigar, a perfectly cooked steak (maybe once or twice a month) and consider these things part of the lifestyle I consciously choose to have. I hope that each man in this forum makes these decisions consciously and not by accident.

Again, a great discussion. I hope we have more of these in this forum in the future.

steckley said:

More refreshing food for thought
Since this thread is discussing food and cigarettes you may want to remember that Philip Morris (Marlboro Country) bought General Foods AND Kraft while RJR bought Nabisco. At the time these were among the biggest buyouts in US history and placed big tobacco in charge of a huge share of what is placed on grocery store shelves.

Kongo believes that dairy products encourage cancer ... I can't think of a larger producer of dairy products than Kraft. You might want to read the labels on the General Foods and Nabisco labels and see if they contain any of the "foods" you want to avoid. I can remember the more recent past when some food companies resisted lableing (especially of transfat) similar to big tobacco's succesful resistance to labeling cigarettes.

My point, to a large extent big food has been run by big tobacco ... if these companies did the research and found out that their ingredients caused cancer do you think they might be a bit cautious with the information? Wouldn't that expose them to possible huge liabilities ... such as those faced by big tobacco?

My bottom line, you might want to focus on fresh foods and not processed ... and maybe organic, but organic's are another story.

steckley said:

Good point
Kongo,

Don't get me wrong, I very much support free enterprise and free markets. Any company should be able to purchase any other company, and tobacco's diversification efforts (especially Philip Morris') were spot on.

What I feel is sinister is what the tobacco companies did (and are still doing) in order to protect their earnings; and quite frankly, I feel they would do the same thing to protect their earnings from the food enterprises. It is one issue to be aggressive in keeping government out of your business, it is quite another to put your business in front of the health of your customers.

I agree with you about unprocessed food taste ... however, at times I crave processed food (taco chips)... I think its the salt load ... now where did I put that Twinki?

Kongo said:

Agree
I think we're in perfect agreement. I too am all in favor of capitalism...but when companies break the law, their CEOs should go to jail. I also think any business sell consumer products, whether it's a TV set, an I-Pad, or food has a fiduciary responsibility to protect the public from faulty products that could impair their health to the best extent reasonable technogy can provide. I have a lot of qualms about the "nanny state" aspects of too much government oversight (I don't wear a bicycle helmet) but most of these laws stem from someone somewhere screwing it up and the public demanded the laws.

My weakness is Taco Bell but I can usually get them to make me a bean burrito without cheese!

mrspjd said:

thought provoking discussion
Steckley and Kongo,
Great talking (writing) points. Besides being highly educated consumers when it comes to purchasing heart/prostate healthy foods, wondering what suggestions anyone might offer on how we might impact our representatives in Washington related to the food industry/lobbyists concern for profit over health? This is a particularly interesting discussion, especially in light of the First Lady's recent national campaign in the "fight against obesity."