Dairy and Red Meat

By seeking to educate yourself about cancer risks, it sounds like you are someone interested in “ stacking the odds in your favor ” for your best possible outcome and becoming an empowered patient.   Good for you! Lifestyle choices – mainly diet/nutrition and exercise – have been shown to favorably influence PSA...the primary measure of prostate cancer progression.   By how much?  Well, it depends.  One doctor wrote "how well a man adheres to diet changes, exercise, and stress reduction predicts how much protection against cancer progression he will experience. " In one very interesting study conducted by Dr Peter Carroll, 100 men with cases of low-risk, but biopsy-confirmed, PC agreed to completely forego any aggressive treatment for at least one year (after all, they had "low risk" PC).   Half the group (the “study group”) undertook a program of (i) diet/nutrition, including decreased or eliminated red meat and dairy, (ii) exercise, and (iii) stress reduction, and the other half (the “control group”) made no changes.   A year later, the “control group” average PSA went up a predictable amount, but the “study group” average PSA went down.   It went DOWN !   H ere’s an easy-to-read ARTICLE , or here’s the study’s REPORT , and HERE’s the statistical results. There is a lot of scientific evidence available on foods that help “fight” cancer , and other foods that help “fuel” cancer (by increasing cancer risks) .   Dairy and red meats are foods that “fuel” prostate cancer .  A little Half-and-Half in your coffee isn't a life-or-death decision, but we should all realize that what we eat is a choice .   In these recent HW threads, below, you will not only find links, but also look for my posts which help explain why dairy is bad for prostate cancer: ·          “Interesting article regarding milk & PCa” ·          “Milk”   Ditto regarding these threads on red meat.   [Also note that red meat is not a “food group” (chuckle, chuckle).   Red meat belongs to the Protein food group.  In one of the threads, one member replied that his doctor told him "not to cut out food groups, like red meat."] ·          “Well done red meat= prostate cancer” ·          “More bad news for red-meat eaters” ·          “Will Eating Red Meat Kill You?”     There is also a number of excellent quotes related to your question from leading PC specialists in the thread called " PC Quote-of-the-Day ".  Check out #13, #51, #67, and especially #62.  In fact, here's one more that I will add to that thread tomorrow: "You truly are what you eat.  We are extremely pleased about our study's findings on the high-fat Western diet, which demonstrated that by altering the diet, we may favorably affect the biology of prostate cancer."   --Dr William Aronson, UCLA's Johnson Comprehensive Cancer Center   In summary, as I said in one of these threads above, eating some red meat or dairy won’t kill you like getting hit by a Mack Truck…but make your own lifestyle choices wisely because it is clear that these decisions can alter the course of the disease.   As the saying goes, “ Life is like a jar of jalapenos.   What you eat today can burn   your a** tomorrow .”               Post Edited (Casey59) : 4/26/2012 10:29:21 PM (GMT-6)

my philosophy is to do things in moderation. I will not give up red meat form time to time and I won't give up dairy.

A healthy balanced diet is good for us regardless of PCa.

Italians live longer than Americans and they smoke, drink and eat a ton of swine.

It makes sense to live a healthy lifestyle as it pertains to diet, exercise and stress. But making a cult of it is also not healthy.

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40 years old - Diagnosed at 40
Robotic Surgery Mount Sinai with Dr. Samadi Jan, 2011
complete urinary control and good erections with and without meds
Prostate was small, 34 grams.
Final Gleason score 7 (3+4)
Less than 5% of slides involved tumor
Tumor measured 5 mm in greatest dimension and was located in the right lobe near the apex.
Tumor was confined to prostate.
The apical, basal, pseudocapsular and soft tissue resection margins were free of tumor.
Seminal vesicles were free of tumor.
Right pelvic node - benign fibroadiopse tissue. no lymph node is identified.
Left pelvic node - one small lymph node, negative for tumor (0/1)

AJCC stage: pT2 NO MX

VV:

In my opinion the connection is for foods with significant cholesterol components, not a group or type of food, or food source. Cholesterol is a near molecular twin of testosterone (and estrogen). The conversion of cholesterol to testosterone in CRPCa cells has been demonstrated in the lab and fulfills logic. Those men who forgo cholesterol rich foods can often see a result in their psa when on active surveillance. A study of men who had CRPCa and were on cholesterol lowering drugs showed them to survive longer than those men who were not on such drugs.
This tells me that cholesterol free, or nearly so, foods are acceptable. Fat free dairy, dairy equivalent (coconut milk, soy milk, etc), and reduced fat meats such as skinless white meat fowl can be used with little concern.

I agree with others in that going extreme is probably not healthy, and that exercise can only help. I can say with certainty that in my case, my PSA initially went down, and the only thing different is greatly reduced consumption of beef, and dairy. I have switched to almond milk on my cereal (my normal breakfast). I do still eat cheese periodically on pizza or tuna melts. I have eaten beef 3 or 4 times since I was diagnosed. I do think this change has helped keep my PSA down though it seems to be slowly rising. Time will tell.

Be well...

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May 2010 PSA 6.9 up from 3 May 2009 (age 46)
July 2010 PSA 3 after anitbiotics
August bx, 1-12 cores PC 5% volume G6
Saturation bx March 2011, 31 cores all neg..
Aug 2011 PSA 2.6, DRE neg.
October 2011 PSA 2.7
February 2012 PSA 2.9
now..Active Survelliance

I looked into a vegan diet as it related to cancers, and specifically prostate cancers, and especially the "Forks over Knives" paradigm. The best conclusion I can come up with, wading through all the "attributions" and junk science is that diet choices specific to cancer are "inconclusive", that is, no "slam dunk". Somewhat unfortunately, the Forks-over-knives "evidence" is RIDDLED with "junk science", attribution, or at least pre-determined results (cherry-picked correlations that support the thesis, disregarding things that contraindicated the thesis), and simplistic ASSUMPTIONS that "correlation" *IS* "causation".

So I am not looking at food as a panacea, but trying to eat reasonably healthy. I am LOWERING my portions of meat and dairy, UPPING my fruits and vegetables, etc.

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Gleason 9, RPP 2/2007. PSA rising, neither Lupron nor Provenge working anymore. Got Radiation. Now on Taxotere----crossing my fingers!

Your killin' me Dave. I really like the roman broccoli too. I can only get it once in a blue moon at whole foods.

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Dx Dec 2008 at 56, PSA 3.4
Biopsy: T1c, Geason 7 (3+4)
Robotic RP March 2009
Path Report: T2c, G8, organ confined, neg margins, lymph nodes - tumor vol 9%
PSA's < .01, .01, .07, .28, .50. ADT 3 5/10. IMRT 7/10.
PSA's post HT/SRT .01, < .01
End ADT3 5/11
PSA 10/11 < .01, T 103
PSA 1/12 < .01, T 214

Dr. Dean Ornish has produced some studies on the effect of a mostly vegan diet on prostate cancer. Personally, I do eat fish fairly regularly and a little poultry about once a month.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaQSZjOEFmM

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PSA: 7.4 at time of diagnosis.
Biopsy: July 4, 2011 @ age 52 -2 samples out of 12 positive, Gleason 6(3+3), both 30%
T1c
Feb, 2012 Tesla 3 MRI shows no nodules in prostate and no sign of progression outside prostate.
Biopsy March 1, 2012 @ age 52- 2 samples out of 10 positive, Gleason 6(3+3), 40 and 70%, Latest PSA 7.5 T1c
Active surveillance; following Ornish-style diet.

I agree on milkiens diet. I was thinking of going there. After I read Myers book I jumped on the modified mediterranean diet as a more doable option for me.

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Dx Dec 2008 at 56, PSA 3.4
Biopsy: T1c, Geason 7 (3+4)
Robotic RP March 2009
Path Report: T2c, G8, organ confined, neg margins, lymph nodes - tumor vol 9%
PSA's < .01, .01, .07, .28, .50. ADT 3 5/10. IMRT 7/10.
PSA's post HT/SRT .01, < .01
End ADT3 5/11
PSA 10/11 < .01, T 103
PSA 1/12 < .01, T 214

Tarhoosier

I agree wholly with the fat reduction especially bad fat. But I think other things should also be considered. For example ground flaxseed was shown to dramatically reduce PCa proliferation pre/post surgery. The same study showed reduced fat consumption also reduced proliferation but to a lesser degree, however, you could question the degree of fat reduction undertaken in the study compared to what seems a very healthy dose of ground flaxseed (30 milligrams per day- a little over three tablespoons). If anyone is interested in reading the study I'm referring to and can't readily find it I'll find my copy and provide the info.

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DaVinci RP 7/08 age 73--tumor confined to prostate with margins clear--T2c--Gleason 3+4. Non-nerve sparing

PSA history post RP:
less than 0.1 10/08 to 7/11
0.1 7/11
0.15 10/11
0.18 1/12