A Diet For Prostate Cancer

Another great find. Thanks.

cashlessclay said...
BillyBob, here are some my more recent dose-dependent
vitamin D numbers. I don't have a zero dose baseline.

1000IU - - - 29.2 - - - microlingual
1500IU - - - 30.1 - - - microlingual
3000IU - - - 31.3 - - - microlingual
and,
4000IU - - - 43.7 - - - liquid vit-D

Only the liquid vitamin D moves the needle for me.

I find the study showing dose dependency of vitamin D
for breast cancer very interesting, do you think you can
post it?

Cashless

I'll try to find it. I have posted it here before, but who knows where or when.

cashlessclay said...
BIllyBob, is this the vitamin D study?

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0199265

Cashless

Seems to be the same, but mine was a different link with sightly different details pointed out. But, probably same one by same authors. I am now looking at the link I supplied in this thread:
https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=35&m=4040743[url]

AK, do you know your vitamin D blood serum levels? If it is on the low
end, you might consider using the diet that gave you the slight PSA
decrease, and supplement vit-D until you reach the mid-40's ng/mL.
Combined this with some vitamin K2, and see if this works for you.
Based on my PSA reduction using a good diet and vitamin D (liquid
supplement) plus K2 from fermented tofu, I think you could see the
kind of numbers you were hoping for.

Cashless

Ak123,

I'm sorry to see that you received an atypical PSA reading on 8/7/2018 (or was the 9/25/2018 reading the one that was off...it really doesn't matter...one of them was). This is exactly the reason for the rule of thumb that nobody should ever make a treatment decision base on only one PSA reading...because PSA test results are known to be flaky.

You've probably done this, but you should look at a chart of your post-treatment PSA results. They are very, very typical for someone with recurrent PC. Drop the anomoly test result (look at it with all the data points, then drop either the Aug or the Sep reading), and it changes very, very little...this is the signature of a single flaky reading.

You are kidding yourself if you thought that eating a cookie on your birthday, or actually enjoying Thanksgiving dinner with your family did you any harm (I'm sorry you missed out; family moments are pricess and irreplaceable)...your trendline over time appears completely unaffected. Plot it (add a 2nd polynomial trendline, which depicts how cancer grows)! And see for yourself. This plot reveals very clearly your next steps.

You should now be under the care of an MO and starting ADT asap...there is frankly no urgent reason for a PET scan in terms of whether to start ADT or not. You've had surgery, you've had salvage radiation therapy, your PSA is steadily and rapidly rising...you have an aggressive cancer metastasis. I'd saddened to see you've felt that you could control this by diet, and I hope this didn't cause you to delay. Good luck. Enjoy a cookie...and I suggest you post your status in another thread where your case can be taken seriously.


edit: You had adjuvant RT, not salvage RT...I made that correction to my post, above in 4th paragraph.

Post Edited (Blackjack) : 1/18/2019 11:14:37 AM (GMT-7)

Ak123 said...
Thanks very much , cashless for your interest. To be honest, as you can imagine I am very disappointed at my results. My D level around 60. I have been taken. D3& K2 together now in one pill for over a couple of years. I am taking 180 mcg and 5000 IU D3. I am not sure why it stopped for a month and half then back up. I have not changed anything to the best of my knowledge. Even my b12 always on the very high end. the only thing I could think of is I gained about 7 pounds and ate once or twice some cookies in my birthday And thanksgiving under the pressure from people around me to enjoy a bit. Very frustrated. Now, I am planning on going on some pet scan for clinical trials at NIH to try to see if there are Mets before I start ADT. it’s a different ball game now unfortunately and sad and I think you brought up the consequences from not following the diet when you were discussing this with some guys here who do not believe in diets. I do believe in it but can’t make it work for me. Thanks again for your help always

ADT, I am sorry to hear this is progressing in such a manner for you, and seemingly no matter what you try to do to help treatment along.

Also, I agree with BlackJack in the sense that you should be doing every thing that your docs suggest. Of course, sometimes different docs can have different opinions, causing us to have to choose. Just like what we had to go through in our initial treatment choice.

But please don't be so certain that what you have tried to do has not helped. Like all of us, you are a single anecdote, a case study N=1, in an ocean of case studies. You had positive margins and EPE measurable PSA right off the bat. So, it is quite possible that you might have done much worse than you have done. Do you agree? I know it is disappointing that your efforts have not stopped your advance completely or even turned it in the opposite direction. But just as if you had done great all this time, it would be impossible to say it was your diet or supplements, and there would be folks here telling you that you are kidding yourself if you think that makes any difference, the same applies in reverse. Because you have not done as well as expected, I am here to tell you that you would be kidding yourself to say that nothing you had done has helped. We simply do not know, just as we wouldn't know for sure if you had done great.

But here is one thing we do know. Since your doubling time seems to be averaging something a bit above 6 months, we know it could be significantly faster. It could have been < 3 months. That happens, right? So can you really say nothing you have done has helped you?

I imagine you already do your best to keep your blood insulin and waistline down. You already do some intermittent fasting, right? And studies have shown that those two things together(insulin/waistline) increase risk as much as 8 fold. It seems likely that high blood levels of D are associated with better survival outcomes, and the studies(RCTs) of most cancers in women certainly show that. It's true that you are not a woman, but the odds seem reasonable that it would also help men with various cancers including PC, and at minimum do no harm. And you are already on top of that. I see no compelling reason to stop doing those things, but what do I know? What does anyone know, really?

Hang in there, Bro!

---

PSA 10.9 ~112013
Bx on 112013 at age ~65yrs, with 5 of 12 pos, G9(5+4), T2B.
RALP with lymph nodes at Vanderbilt 021914. (nodes clear, SV+, G9 down graded to 4+5, 1 focal margin )
only rare pad use after 1 year
PSA <.01 on 6/14 and all until 9/15 = .01, still .01 9/16, .02 on 3/17,6/17,10/17, .06 1/18, .06 4/18, <.05 7/18, .06 10/18, .06 01/19

I understand blackjack and am aware about the debate to start adt earlier or later. NIH should get me in for the scan no later than middle of February (hopefully), so the delay I think is not that much but I would like to have a base line about Mets before I start ADT right after I get the results even if I don’t treat the Mets by radiation but just as a base line, is this approach bad?does it make sense to you or not?

---

diagnosed on 10/2012 at 58 years old
RP 12/2012, Gleason 3+4, positive margins and EPE, PNI,. T2c.
12/2016 .07
SRT 1/2017 (39 sessions at MSK )-radiation to prostate bed only
5/2017 .07
7/2017 .10
2/2018 .17
4//3/2018 .22
8/7/2018 .36
9/25/2018 .34
11/30/2018 .44

I hope that you didn’t miss my earlier point: the debate/controversy doesn’t apply to your case. Don’t get caught-up in a one-size-fits-all loop.

I am quite surprised and a bit baffled that your oncologist is recommending this approach. (Is he/she??)

The most important, most typical use of PET scans in the recurrent situation is to rule OUT salvage treatments when it would be futile. In other words, to rule out distant mets which would obviate the need for SRT. But this is not your situation. Your prostate bed was already radiated (so when you are talking radiation, you mean “spot“ radiation to the already distant mets…like ribs, etc.??).

Furthermore, while I do understand that there is some nominal benefit using serial PET scans to track success of treatments, there’s an important rule of thumb which I think overrides that: it is never a good idea to delay systemic therapy (ADT) in order to wait for PSA to increase to a point where metastasis becomes detectable on a PET scan.

CC: "My waist is 32 inches and
hasn't changed for years."

A strong indication that your fasting and average blood insulin is very low. It would be a hoot if you ever had it measured.

cashlessclay said...
BillyBob,

Fasting insulin has not changed since I went on the diet.
It was, and is, 90 mg/dL.

But, my A1c was 5.4 at the start, and is 4.9 in June 2018.

Cashless

Fasting insulin, or fasting glucose? If in microunits per milliliter, 90 would be extremely high. Fasting glucose can remain unchanged, but the amount of insulin required to keep it in that range can vary a lot. The drop in your A1C almost guarantees a drop in insulin. Any drop in waistline almost guarantees a drop in insulin. I'd almost be willing to bet you are a low insulin guy. Though I can not be so certain that you were not always low insulin. But unless you always ate a low carb or at least low calorie, moderate carb diet, probably you were not.

cashlessclay said...
BillBob,

Fasting insulin, or fasting glucose? The 90 mg/dL is my fasting glucose,
not insulin. I don't recall getting a blood insulin test. I am very careful to
moderate insulin spikes with food selection, although I do not know actual
values. But I take great pains not have added sugar, and fast carbs, such
as white rice, bread, etc.

If my PSA continues to drop, I will ease up on some aspects of the diet.
I'm looking to maintain PSA in the 0.3 to 0.4 range, and not to go below
0.2 at any time. My concern is that mutations resistant to treatment could
evolve. But, I'm hoping that such mutations will be unlikely, since my
treatment option is the control of basic nutrition going into cancer cells.

Cashless

Yes, Glucose, that is what I figured. The reasons I asked you that is because in response to my comment that your waist was 32" was a "A strong indication that your fasting and average blood insulin is very low. It would be a hoot if you ever had it measured. ", you responded
"BillyBob,

Fasting insulin has not changed since I went on the diet.
It was, and is, 90 mg/dL...............".

So I asked "Fasting insulin, or fasting glucose?", figuring you meant glucose, and you did.

Interesting thought on not getting PSA too low. ( I believe you supplied a link on that subject earlier )

cashlessclay said...
BillyBob,

Here are two references on Adaptive Therapy.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01968-5

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2007066

I find the concept quite interesting.

Cashless

Interesting. Thanks!

---

PSA 10.9 ~112013
Bx on 112013 at age ~65yrs, with 5 of 12 pos, G9(5+4), T2B.
RALP with lymph nodes at Vanderbilt 021914. (nodes clear, SV+, G9 down graded to 4+5, 1 focal margin )
only rare pad use after 1 year
PSA <.01 on 6/14 and all until 9/15 = .01, still .01 9/16, .02 on 3/17,6/17,10/17, .06 1/18, .06 4/18, <.05 7/18, .06 10/18, .06 01/19