Has anyone had success starving Prostate Cancer to death through diet, exercise, supplements and prescribed medicines? Thoughts?
CAN CANCER BE STARVED TO DEATH - Advanced Prostate...
CAN CANCER BE STARVED TO DEATH
Nothing you eat as food or purchase in a health-food store makes any difference once you have been diagnosed with terminal cancer..Spend your money on something else..If any of this stuff worked, cancer would have been cured a long time ago.. The list of worthless products that claim to able to cure cancer is long indeed..
I don't think anyone on this site has advocated supplements as a cure. Diet and supplements may slow the progression of Pca and have a nutritional benefit while fighting.
You suggested health-food stores, as a cynic or more politely as a doubting Thomas, would I be presumptuous to include your pharmacy, Physician’s office and your 5 star rated hospital into the mix.
I have long believed their are no cures for metastatic PCa,,,little argument here,,,but additionally most cures for any PCa above a diagnosed G 6(many respected medical professionals suggest now except in very rare cases should not be considered a true cancer anyhow,,,and if left alone with no therapy at all will take care of themselves with zero intervention) that are claimed, are really only ‘cured’ because the patient expired from a competing morbidity or accident or violence.
Yes the inevitable can be postponed with some therapies for short periods, but ‘cured’,,,,no.
The overwhelming majority of cures claimed from various interventionist therapies are purely the result of competing morbidities as suggested above, plus,,,and this is a big number,,,would never had if left alone, never had led to death.
PCa has a very long time,,,perhaps 15 or more years from inception until diagnoses even with screening which perhaps gains 5 years verses competing methods such as symptoms or a Dre.
This suggests that for 15 years that blood and lymphatic fluids have been spreading this tumor throughout the body,,,just as the mother lode of gold at the Mtn peaks of the Sierras led to the discovery of gold in 1848 at Sutter’s Mill, some many miles downstream caused by nature’s water erosion. Therefore mets of micro level size are often throughout the body by the time local therapy is performed which is the/a major reason for recurrence and eventual death from PCa if a competing morbidity does not first step in.
Just one uneducated man’s opinion.
Comments or arguments welcome.
What? Dead man walking !!!! So some of these dead men writing on this forum have been walking for last 10..15 or even 18 years ! e g Magnum etc.
By that logic, every man is basically "dead man walking" as we all have a date with death some day whether we have prostate cancer or not...its only a matter of time.
I posted once before a book called eat to beat. It does not say it will cure, but it can help to eat specific food that helps good cells fight bad cells.
No. You can't starve the cancer without starving the rest of your body. Cancer is a nutrient hog that will feed itself first before it lets the rest of your cells eat. If you are low on one nutrient pathway, it will just switch to another.
Should be in response to Fairwind post not Tall Allen.
You suggested health-food stores, as a cynic or more politely as a doubting Thomas, would I be presumptuous to include your pharmacy, Physician’s office and your 5 star rated hospital into the mix.
I have long believed their are no cures for metastatic PCa,,,little argument here,,,but additionally most cures for any PCa above a diagnosed G 6(many respected medical professionals suggest now except in very rare cases should not be considered a true cancer anyhow,,,and if left alone with no therapy at all will take care of themselves with zero intervention) that are claimed, are really only ‘cured’ because the patient expired from a competing morbidity or accident or violence.
Yes the inevitable can be postponed with some therapies for short periods, but ‘cured’,,,,no.
The overwhelming majority of cures claimed from various interventionist therapies are purely the result of competing morbidities as suggested above, plus,,,and this is a big number,,,would never had if left alone, never had led to death.
PCa has a very long time,,,perhaps 15 or more years from inception until diagnoses even with screening which perhaps gains 5 years verses competing methods such as symptoms or a Dre.
This suggests that for 15 years that blood and lymphatic fluids have been spreading this tumor throughout the body,,,just as the mother lode of gold at the Mtn peaks of the Sierras led to the discovery of gold in 1848 at Sutter’s Mill, some many miles downstream caused by nature’s water erosion. Therefore mets of micro level size are often throughout the body by the time local therapy is performed which is the/a major reason for recurrence and eventual death from PCa if a competing morbidity does not first step in.
Just one uneducated man’s opinion.
Comments or arguments welcome
Not necessarily. Why you say that? There are way too many factors involved (aggressivity of the cancer, treatment response, etc...) and you can't really predict the outcome.
My grandfather lived over 15 years after a stage 4 diagnosis of this disease and guess what? He passed away due to something else.
Many stage 4 cancer patients are still alive even over a decade from diagnosis, it's not always a death sentence.
Tom,
The topic brings to mind the large number of people who have given up sugar to "starve" their cancer. Such a common idea that I should have mentioned it in your quackery thread.
The problem is how to deprive the tumor without depriving healthy tissue. For that, one must consider how cancer cells differ from normal cells. &, increasingly, how your PCa cells differ from mine. It's too big a subject for a quick response & I'll wait for Nalakrats to do the heavy lifting.
My focus, shortly after diagnosis, was how to slow the proliferation rate. I became interested in studies that involved growth factors. The names generally end in "GF". GFs are bad news when one has cancer.
In PCa, IMO, the GF to watch out for is Insulin-like growth factor-1 [IGF-I] (& the insulin axis in general). There are hundreds of PCa papers on the topic.
Most IGF-I is bound to binding proteins [IGFBPs]. There are over 300 papers on IGFBP-3. Generally in PCa, levels of IGFBP-3 are reduced, freeing-up IGF-1 for growth promotion.
The topic of IGFs (there is also an IGF-2) & their binding proteins is quite large, although I might have a go.
I was born in England in 1948, but meat rationing, introduced at the start of WWII (1939) didn't end until 1954, when I was six & a half. My generation is shorter than the next. The body does not invest in growth at key points during childhood unless there is a reliable intake of the important nutrients, particularly the essential amino acids. It will restrict growth factor production if investing in growth appears not to be prudent.
Fully formed animal protein provides all of the amino acids needed by the body to build protein. Meat rationing in Britain lowered IGF-I levels in my developing body. Alas, not enough to minimize PCa risk - the shortest men enjoy the lowest rate of PCa. Odd that IGF-I levels many decades in the past can bite you in the rear. "Got milk?" (U.S. slogan. In the U.K. it was "drinka pinta milka day") - milk is loaded with IGF-I.
One approach which will lower IGF-I production is known as selective amino acid restriction. Methionine is the favorite. This is easiest for vegans, but omnivores can do it if they limit intake of animal protein.
This is probably the easiest way to slow down growth. It's a survival strategy - not starvation - not a cure.
***
I was reading a new Steve Freedland paper [1] on Friday:
"A Low Glycemic Index Diet Slows Prostate Cancer Growth."
There are some references to IGF-I:
"Carbohydrates are the main source of energy in older adults in the US. Moreover, they increase insulin and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF1), which are implicated in tumor growth by increasing cell survival."
"LoGI WD {Low Glycemic Index Western Diet} mice had lower tumor volumes, insulin, IGF1, and IGF1: IGFBP-3 ratio, and higher IGFBP-3 levels, than the other two groups."
& "LoGI WD mice had lower body fat"!
-Patrick
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/312...
Curr Dev Nutr. 2019 Jun 13;3(Suppl 1). pii: nzz030.P05-018-19. doi: 10.1093/cdn/nzz030.P05-018-19. eCollection 2019 Jun.
A Low Glycemic Index Diet Slows Prostate Cancer Growth (P05-018-19).
Galvan GC1, Macias E2, Sanders S1, Ramirez-Torres A1, Freedland S1.
Author information
Abstract
OBJECTIVES:
Carbohydrates are the main source of energy in older adults in the US. Moreover, they increase insulin and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF1), which are implicated in tumor growth by increasing cell survival. Previously, we found low carbohydrate (LC) diets slow prostate cancer (PC) growth and increase survival vs. a Western diet (WD) in mice. However, long-term adherence to a LC diet can be difficult for cancer patients. Thus, we aimed to determine whether modifying carbohydrate quality without changing quantity could result in the same outcome as when quantity is reduced. Carbohydrate quality was based on a glycemic index (GI), which indicates how carbohydrates affect blood glucose levels. Low GI carbohydrates are absorbed more slowly and result in a lower and slower increase in glucose levels and insulin demand than high GI carbohydrates. We hypothesized that high carbohydrate intake but with a low GI would slow PC growth, by reducing insulin levels.
METHODS:
A xenograft mice study compared the effect on PC growth of 3 diets: HiGI WD (48% carbohydrate: sucrose), HiGI LC (20% carbohydrate: sucrose), and LoGI WD (48% carbohydrate: amylose, amylopectin, maltodextrin). Male SCID mice were fed an ad lib HiGI WD. At day 14, they were injected with 5 × 105 LAPC-4 cells. When tumors reached ∼200 mm3, mice were single-housed and randomized to their diets (n = 33/group). Mice were pair-fed to ensure all had the same weight throughout the study. Tumor volume and body weight were measured 2X per week. Body composition was determined by Echo-MRI. The outcomes of the study were tumor volume, survival, glucose, insulin, IGF-1 and IGFBP-3 levels, and tumor tissue analysis.
RESULTS:
LoGI WD mice had lower tumor volumes, insulin, IGF1, and IGF1: IGFBP3 ratio, and higher IGF-BP3 levels, than the other two groups. Blood glucose was similar across arms. Even though body weight was similar across arms, LoGI WD mice had lower body fat. In a meal tolerance test, glucose was higher in HiGI WD mice with comparable results between the other two diets.
CONCLUSIONS:
Feeding mice a low GI diet delayed PC growth and decreased serum insulin, IGF1 and IGF1: IGFBP3 ratios vs. a high GI diet. These data suggest carbohydrate quality is important for PC growth. Whether a low-carbohydrate and low GI diet would have additive benefits remains to be tested.
FUNDING SOURCES:
American Institute for Cancer Research.
PMID: 31223785 PMCID: PMC6573928 DOI: 10.1093/cdn/nzz030.P05-018-19
"carbohydrate quality" ! where the carbohydrate quality fits with fruits (mainly fructose) ?
I mean carbs in carrots, apples.berries, watermelons etc. Are they good for people with pCA.
There are GI (glycemic index) & GL (glycemic load) tables.
GI is good for food comparisons, e.g. same serving of banana versus blueberries.
GL is good for comparing typical servings.
Generally, we should draw from foods that are at the low end of both, IMO. & with a generous amount of fats, as in the Mediterranean diet (40%) - nuts can help.
care.diabetesjournals.org/c...
-Patrick
Hang on Bill, you never, never know, especially with new treatments every other month or so. I was given 1 year max from metastatic kidney cancer to the bone 23 years ago and a 5.1 pound tumor that had grown into my vena cava. Took TVAX vaccines and it resolved and am considered cured now. Never looked back. Wish they would have had vaccines available for this beast but will be at 5 years August 8th from a start of a 212.6 PSA with lymph involvement up to my neck. Then went to the sacrum, spine, and cheekbone. Vaccines resolved all of the aapx 30 mets but the primary two years ago now. Have been stable since so if I don't do Lu177 will have a prostatectomy very soon and have more of the Baylor vaccines made to try to wipe out any floaters. All PET scans have been PSMA PET's since Feb. 2017. Clear September 2017. Feel great to be honest. There is hope to at least make it chronic now and I would be just fine with that. PSA last week was 1.97. Hang in there, you really never know. Perhaps I am naive, but they told me sorry 23 years ago and a trial saved my life at KU Med in Kansas City with the immunologist Gary Wood and Frank Holladay.
Really amazing! What therapies did you against prostate cancer (ADT, radiation, zytiga) and what about this vaccines? did you have a biopsy, what is your Gleason score?
I am working on growing broccoli sprouts--they are high in sulforophane--anti-cancer....Cujoe swears by these in his diet....as do many others....
Fish
Be careful Fish - the seeds may be contaminated with bacteria, & the growing conditions will be ideal for food poisoning. Many outbreaks in the U.S. linked to sprouts.
I am sure there must be advice somewhere on how to pre-treat the seeds.
Good luck, -Patrick
I work with the Master of Sprouts--Cujoe.... I buy only non-GMO seeds and soak them overnight....that is then drained out before the start---there are multiple rinses applied throughout the process....Appreciate the warning.....
Fish
BTW, Cujoe mentioned that broccoli sprouts have less of an issue with that problem...I believe that bean and alfalfa sprouts are more worrisome for food poisoning....Thanks....
Fish
Keeping your weight down unquestionably helps. And maintaining levels of obesity unquestionably hurts.
There is no doubt at all that cancer can be starved to death, providing the man is starved for long enough, and when the man dies from starvation, so does the cancer. No doubt about this.
But after reading hundreds of posts on Pca chat groups, I have never come across any man able to starve for long enough to stop his cancer growing, then able to begin eating again and live on without his cancer.
Patrick Turner.
Superb reply, Patrick-Turner, thank you very much.
8 years ago there was a lecture by an old professor at Australian National University where his research was to find a vaccine for cancer to prevent it, and to use it therapeutically to kill it, and he's been around since 1950s, and said he knew of a lady in Japan diagnosed with a brain tumour in 1939, well before Japan entered a time of severe food shortages during and after WW2 where everyone thinned down after losing a lot of weight. She made it through that time, but when Japan recovered, and ppl ate more, her tumour grew to kill her. There was no cure for anything like what she had at that time.
I've been told that a ketogenic diet puts the body into a state of ketosis and the teller told me if I did not eat any carbohydrates my blood sugar level would drop so much it would starve any Pca tumor which needs lots and lots of sugar intake to grow. He quoted some figures, then I checked the source, but it was all BS. AND, Pca is a slow growing cancer, needing a very small amount of nutrients to slowly grow big enough to kill us. So even when blood sugar is say halved from the normal we might see when we are well fed, the Pca needs only a tiny amount to continue to grow just fine, but if our blood sugar goes too low, we die. We break down muscles to make more sugar in blood ( glucose ) when we starve.
A few of us get very mild forms of Pca, and the slightest thing done to halt its progress is sometimes very effective, but most of us are not that lucky, and after RP that didn't work, or ADT + radiation that didn't work, we have to have this procession of drugs and more ADT one after the other that don't work forever so we end up at Lu177, atomic warfare, and then it still comes back and Hoo Noze what works after that, if anything. And what you eat or don't eat makes ZERO difference to the Pca.
I am getting a reprieve now from Pca with Psa about 1.6, after 4 x Lu177 shots and while on enzalutamide, which may or may not be working.
I am keeping weight steady but can't exersise because a hip is dysfunctional. I've been keeping weight 20Kg lower than it was in 2006 when I'd had years of sedentary living with bad knees. I cycled 140,000km between 2006 and 3 months ago, but all of this wonderful lifestyle stuff made ZERO difference to my cancer progress because what DNA does when it changes its structure is usually entirely beyond any of my mental control and entirely independent of whatever I eat. My immune system cannot recognise my cancer as being rogue cells and may actually help cancer stay alive and well and may do what it can to obstruct the efforts by doctors in 101 ways we might never know about.
Immune therapy that had a large chance of working with few side effects is a Holy Grail of research, but is years away. Some get a benefit from Provenge, a ruinously expensive therapy to buy, but many don't.
Trials of Lu177 with Keytruda are going on here in Oz, and there are in fact many trials, all hoping to cure most forms of Pca.
But I can see Pca killing me later. Meanwhile I'm living, and chasing the docs for a fix of my hip, and I quite enjoy life while it lasts.
At lunch yesterday in a café, I met a young lady of 40, and we talked foran hour or more. I told her my position and outlook as a man of 72 with limited time and aches and pains. I wasn't trying to "pick her up", but there to explore the meaning of existence, if it has any. She said she'd give me a prayer because she said she felt the presence of the Divine. OK, no need to dismiss her, she was a very pleasant person. So with a hand on my hip and other on my chest, she said a prayer. This peaceful lady believed in Christ, and that is of course a benign thing IMHO, so I gracefully accepted her prayer, even though I don't believe Christ was God, and don't believe in the supernatural, because humans cannot understand what is beyond what they can see. We could be much better ppl if we tried, even without any belief in God I told her gently.
I didn't need a painkiller last night, but result seemed short of an astonishing miracle. but, maybe she did have some "healing powers" so I'll give her the benefit of any doubt.
I'm seeing my doc in an hour for Lucrin inject and referral to another doc for a cortisone inject to a cyst on a tendon in my groin area that's mentioned on an MRI report. Maybe that's the source of my hip pain; Pca is so little there its not causing pain.
I try to explore every option. I like young folks who explore existence.
I might see the lady again, maybe not, the few unmarried 40yo ladies kind of get around a lot and are unable to settle down, but they are not wearied by dealing with the work of kids and a husband and house. So some will never be a regular at any café.
Its a nice day here, but was a cold night, -3C,
Patrick Turner.
Very, very interesting meeting with the young lady of 40 indeed And, she performed a minor miracle, didn't she ??
Thanks for the post, Patrick. Cheers and all the very best !!!
I cannot yet say whether she performed a miracle.
I did get to have a look at my MRI scan of painful hip with my local doc and he pointed out just where he thinks the cyst is located, and its not on a tendon but is just on area beside the top of the hip joint inside the bursa membrane enclosing the joint. He arranged for me to talk to another doc for 2nd opinion to see if a less invasive arthroscopy can be performed to trim cartilage in hip, so painful area is not rubbing together. A new hip joint is far more invasive, and involves cutting and then healing of radiation affected tissues. My symptoms are similar to another man I spoke to today who had pain driving, pain in bed, even though he could walk.
I'm having same pain today, and tonight there will be more so I'll take a pain killer tablet.
Just remember, there are not too many crutches left behind at Lourdes from ppl who can't walk seeking miracles. Not too many miracles for men who can't wank after Pca treatment.
It was a pleasant experience to meet a nice purist lady, sort of like a devout nun, who has chosen a path away from men. I did mention that if she wanted to feel more spiritual forces that might be mutually beneficial, perhaps she could attend meetings of a local running club where probably there are some very fine samples of men.
I said the men there, or the women there can do a quite a few things that I just cannot do.
I stopped short of advising she brought a plate of whole meal scones to a running race meeting. Of course it may have also been a depressing endeavour because all the best men her age are well into parenthood, or strange or obsessive, gay, etc, left-overs in the mating game contests that occurred 15 years before, where the bravest and most energetic find each other, and the odd men and odd women can only fumble with unsuccessful bonding in their 30s and 40s.
Cycling clubs also have The Most Healthy men, and when I raced in 1990, there were about 200 members, mostly built like greyhounds and ragingly fit, but only 10 active females, the best of whom was 25 and maybe gay who could only manage to keep up with men of 45 "veterans". There was nobody at all marriageable in the club during my 6 year membership. I was then one of the best bachelors to be had by anyone willing, I owned a house, no kids of my own, extremely sensible and hard working. Any woman joining now would have M to F ratio in her favour though. But few ladies cycle seriously, they hardly ever manage to maintain their bikes, because mechanics is not understood, and there's harassment so often.
But this dear healing lady probably would not find enduring companionship with a poxed up old bar stud like me, a trifle too realistic about all things, a kind of dead end adventure. I like the lady, but there's no possible future. There will never ever be any lady who will be a serious part of my life, and this is truer now than when an ex-wife fled in 1978, unable to love herself, or anything, and only able to hate all things, once novelty wore off, then try to run away from all things.
Life goes on, with or without anyone female being in it. But the young nurse was nice who injected Lucrin today, a day not too cold,
and I have other things to occupy my mind.
Patrick Turner.
I was kidding about the "miracle" part, Patrick I am an agnostic at the very least, if not an outright atheist. Thanks for the informative and humorous posts
Cheers !!!
Well why do some men get a big benefit with any given treatment and some do not? So those getting no benefit can be forgiven for seeing the others getting a miracle. I think its a huge miracle to find a woman at 20, and still be happily married to her at 90. My mum lived to 98, and never had any cancer, and not too many other ailments except old fashioned old age. But yes, I understand being agnostic, ie, God is there, but like a daddy who never spends time with the kids, remote, unreachable, and who really can't be persuaded to make anything happen that ppl pray for. Ppl keep on praying though.
They pray for a lottery win, a cancer cure, or victory in battle. Many such things are subject to luck or chance, so when a win occurs, they say it proved God exists. Try telling that to the losers. I cannot be completely atheist either, because us simple little humans have almost no knowledge of the big picture about the universe and maybe an infinite number of universes exist beyond what we can see with our little telescopes. So why would anyone commit to being a pure atheist or agnostic when it would be arrogant because it is making a judgement on what is perceived without the full amount of information that is not yet available. For example, 95% of what is known in our universe is Dark Matter. We know its there, because of its gravitational effect on stars and galaxies, but nobody has defined it, so just what is it? It is a complete Miss Terrey.
It is possible believers in God secretly hope for more evidence that God exist. I predict they'll wait for an eternity. But the idea that its OK to believe in a God and then say that what is seen or nor seen scientifically demonstrates there must be a God is as absurd as saying a world class magician created all that is in the universe. We go through life with one painful thing happening after the other, and more often in the past this led to death, and the reasons were often rarely known, so the human tendency is to imagine a daddy in the sky to comfort us, and imagine a spirit world and an afterlife, and so many ancient tribes did this routinely, all well before Christ and Christianity or any other Faith evolved on Earth. We know from the fossil records here in Australia that ppl arrived here 60,000 years ago. But their oldest art that survived is only 28,000 years old. Its says little of what they believed, but their history was passed down by oral tradition, not a Bible, and is fascinating when it has been told to ppl recording it. Maybe if you went back 30,000 years with a nice digital recorder, the elders would tell a different story.
Each generation re-writes history, and gives a slightly different oral history, so where does the truth go? Its often lost, or becomes myth. So every sentence that these ancients instilled into their children about spirits and Creation can be argued to be a pile of BS, because there really were no snakes that turned into rivers, no strange change of animal species to explain anything, and any significance given to their star gazing was no more informed than astrology.
So all their beliefs were propelled by a profoundly deep ignorance about almost all things, except about what was needed to survive in a harsh landscape without inventing a wheel, giving up agriculture after arriving here, and having little improvements to technology for the 60,000 years. The elders taught their kids where the water was, where the game was, where the best plants were, and how to make the best spears and a few other things such as rules about killing other ppl, and that was quite enough to facilitate a 60,000 year history of survival without threat to existence like we have with A-bombs.
Ice ages came and went, sea levels rose and fell, yet these early ppl survived. Their DNA indicates there ancestors were out of India and out of Africa before, a long travel story. They sometimes grew old, rarely, and many died before 35. But remarkably, when whites arrived here in late 18th century it seemed their lives were as long as the whites, and their social systems and rules governed their lives, like white laws governed ours, and they had ideas about supernatural, all so different to the whites, but the validity of God beliefs was little different. They had wars between tribes like we did. They were not perfect like us, so what was so life giving about their spiritual beliefs or ours? Not a great deal. Now, one can safely abandon all spiritual belief because it has almost no contribution to survival. Law and order and moral ideas affect survival though.
To get to old age we don't need a God belief or a priest mumbling prayers or witchdoctor screaming spells, we need a good doctor, and Big Pharma, despite BP's obvious greedy behavior.
But ppl are nostalgic, they cling to the past, and think the first major big book, the Bible, is the only Right and Correct Book. I am hiding away in the suburbs where its easy to avoid these fairy tale experts.
There's a TV series going on here in Oz on SBS called the Handmaid's Tale, and its a story of a dystopian America called Gilead where the religious right have seized control in a world where birth rates have plummeted to almost zero because of a confluence of reasons.
So its a horrid tale of ppl being nasty to each other, terrible Old Testament rules, with strong God belief underpinning all things, but with those at the top being most corrupt sinners.
But in China in 2016, the CCP relaxed the one child per woman rule, because birth rates were so low, leading to an old population which would be a weak population. Have more kids the CCP told all. But population child per woman ratio is still falling, because once ppl get a taste of the good material life that the west takes for granted, they just don't want to spoil it by the work and pain of raising kids in poverty. Women are emancipated by education. The end result of all this is less God bothering, less ppl ask God to provide, they get interesting work to do instead, and find comfort with other ppl with Facebook, not praying to something imagined in church. But there's an increase in diversity of being, so Christians do gather to pray on Sundays, and the CCP is not burning down every church to prevent a Christian tyranny evolving. Still, many ppl in many countries are afraid of ppl with faith, because they can't be controlled. They won't conform, and the idea of democracy is a huge threat. In this turmoil called modernity, we are extremely lucky for the diversity of free endeavour that brings medicines to fight Pca.
A more coldly logical society would ban medicine for all over 50, and only give it to the young. Well, empathy seems to rule, thankfully, so here we are to ponder our being here, with a number of possible alternatives swirling in our minds, and many are confused, insecure so its no wonder so many disagree about what is real or not, and can be wooed or bribed to vote one way or other.
I have needed to take more painkillers after having a prayer applied to me by a Christian lady healer, one who claims to feel the presence of the Lord. As I said before, a miracle cannot yet be claimed to have occurred unless the pain went away and I could cycle 50km and not have any pain afterwards, and future scans would show no arthritis lesions where cartilage has thinned to almost nothing, or a cyst in the bursa enclosing the hip joint. An MRI does not tell lies. People are free to feel whatever they say they feel. The lady was highly well meaning, so I graciously accepted her prayer.
But I think I need to spend a pile of dough on a doctor before I can cycle again.
Patrick Turner.
The book (anti cancer ,a new way to life) is a great supplement to cancer. It gives nutrition advice (written by a doctor who had a brain tumor , removed came back and chemo for a year and still alive after 16 years) , it is a great book of hope, I have incorporated nutrition and exercise. Scan came back today good, the lesions are smaller that indicates healing and no new lesions. I have cut way back on red meat and sugar and walk 1.5 miles 4 or 5 times a week. I am on lupron shots for almost 2 years, going to celebrate with a friend.
When I saw the title, I assumed the post was going to be about the book by Jane McLelland called How to Starve Cancer. She is still around some 20 years after being dx with stage IV cervical cancer. Living proof that cancer can be starved. You have to attack the many pathways by which cancer metabolises. By diet, exercise, supplements, off label drugs.
If you have not read it, then
Get it. Read it. Reread it. It has given me belief that my CRPC CAN be stopped.
Rpol
I feel that my increasingly restrictive dietary (lifestyle) changes over last 10 years helped (started with heart bypass) convinced me to change food choices though it didn't stop me from getting a stage 4, PCa, Dx with Mets throughout body last year. Otherwise healthier though.
Just finishing Jane's book along with lots of other reading to further my knowledge to judge my remaining choices.
I won't stop whatever MO recommends but I will continue working on food choices, alternative therapies I've chosen, exercise, pain reduction, based on my personal research until it's over. Seems a better choice than what med system says is NOT a cure as the best they have to offer. Since Dx gave me 6mos or less over a year ago I'm at least screwing up their statistics. Got to find your fun where you can.
2Dee
Me too. I take my Lupron, have my hot flushes and, so far, love to see my low PSA results, etc. But I see the LUpron as a holding action with the possibility of a cure coming from the alternate treatments and activities that I pursue. These alternate approaches energize me to get up each morning with a bounce in my step and to come out ready for the next round. Excuse me, I have to prepare my new recipe for Resistant Starch Oatmeal
I read Jane's Book as well. Cancer, including ours evolves. No one treatment seems to work for everyone. The theory that Jane works with is that most chemo targets the fast growing cells, typically these are glucose dependent. PCa is slow growing at the start, dependent on glutamine and or fatty acid metabolism, this is why ADT is the therapy of choice. Only later it "learns" to use glucose as it metastasizes. So basically all of the ADT therapies are metabolic in nature. With resources like PubMed and Jane's book we can broaden our treatment modalities. She worked with older off label drugs and supplements in the new context of genetic and epigenetic knowledge that's already out there. The drugs and supplements she used have low side effects, are inexpensive and seem to work synergistically. A look on PubMed for "prostate cancer metabolic phenotype" lays out a number of possible targets and therapies like this we can use right now alongside the treatment regimens like ADT.
Another piece of the theory is that a small proportion of cancer cells are "stem like", these are capable of switching between the 3 metabolic systems. What Jane and others propose ( interesting review biochemj.org/content/475/9/... is that while the options for cancer cells to navigate various pathways are many, they are not infinite. As the epigenetic manipulations of which PCa is capable are discovered, they can be interrupted.
There are so many really smart knowledgeable people on this forum. What if stories like Joe Tippens successful use of Fenbendazole was at least partially dependent on the amount and type of therapy he'd had previously. The radiation and chemo might have forced the cancer into a relatively unstable state where even if further radiation and chemotherapy would not have been useful, Fenbendazole finished the job.
Diet can be a piece of this. Meat directly feeds glutamine and it could be better to make the cancer work a little harder for its' supper. Cruciferous veggies in one study were the only dietary choice those researchers found actually had a positive effect. And sulphofuranes can be made many times more bioavailable with the addition of brown mustard powder(it has the needed enzyme myrosynase). Yet we need to be informed and the information is scattered. If we're doing IVC, then we should lay off the Broccoli for awhile because the same biochemicals that are so helpful, can interfere with the caspase cascade that leads to apoptosis.
So many avenues to explore. Let's keep sharing as much as we can. As Jane did, we might take inspiration from the AIDS experience. A very smart motivated community made use of limited resources and existing pharmaceutical knowledge and came up with a cocktail that was really effective within a decade.
Bill - so sad to see your "surrender mode". Alas, 9 out of 10 Oncos also say "eat what you like" and encourage false thinking. BAD DIET is what got us where we are because that trashed our immune systems which would normally control cancer throughout our lives. If you keep eating badly, you do need to get through your bucket list quickly. For those of us who have seen the light, and a recurring theme in posts you will see here, is that ANY spikes in blood sugar (even short ones) are exploited by PCa to grow some more. A low-sugar-spike diet is not starvation at all, and there are many who testify to many years of quality extra life.
A few years ago I went to a talk about Cancer by Paul Davies. I was fascinated because he is a physicist and cosmologis. BUT he got me thinking...
See an article by him:
themonthly.com.au/issue/201...
And this is a section from the article. I agree with what I have read that less sugar and more oxygen is the way to go!
"Another therapy idea to come from the atavism theory also harks back a century, to the work of Otto Warburg, a Nobel Prize–winning physician. Normal human cells use oxygen to generate energy, but cancer often switches to fermentation, a low-oxygen, high-glucose process. It is less energy-efficient, but good for making biomass. Warburg discovered that cancer will switch to fermentation even in the presence of normal oxygen levels. It is tempting to speculate that, in reverting to an ancestral form, cancer is reprising a lifestyle adapted to the state of planet Earth at the time when multicellular organisms first evolved. And geologists have determined that before a billion years ago there was indeed far less free oxygen in the atmosphere. Some researchers have used this insight to advocate the application of hyperbaric oxygen therapy combined with a low-glucose diet to stymie the Warburg effect and slow the cancer."
What do other people think?
Keep strong and given the years people get to, noone is a dead man walking! My partner is Grad IV, Gleeson 8 and his doctors are talking cure.
Hi everyone,
I met a patient who has been taking for 5 years now small dose of COX-2 with green tea and Casodex+special diet. Many patients trying intravenous infusions with salinomycin, curcumin, artesunate, vitamin C together with standard drugs. I think that some patients trying together with standard drugs another drugs (off label) like fenbendazole, menbendazole, grape seed extract, MPC (modified Pectim Citrus), LDN (low dose naltrexone) Herceptin (for prostate cancer with HER2), pasireotide (Novartis), some malaria drugs and many more. There is some clinical trials. I have now recurrence after LDR Brachy in 2002 and salvage radiotherapy with two years Casodex 150mg in 2006.
I wonder which drug is the best for me (together with Casodex) Maybe some "combo" -three drugs together? What is your opinions?
Fully and as the only treatment I think not, but stage and grade always matter. But reduce inflammation and boost health with mushrooms etc. - absolutely. Check out book by lorenzo (forgot last name) head of integrative medicine at MDA.
Not true Bill. Likely, but not true in all cases. Stage 4 with distant Mets in 2004. Able to stop Lupron in 2010 and started low dose testosterone replacement in 2011. Since 2003, a little over two dozen nuclear bone and CT scans and over ten dozen PSA and T blood work. Still undetectable. I have always faced reality.
I wish you the best
GD
Whoaaaa. Next you guys are going to tell me that eating chocolate covered broccoli florets is bad for me. 😉.
My M.O. suggested a “sensible” diet like the Mediterranean diet. I have still never seen study conclusively showing that resorting to a highly restrictive diet will add a quantified “x” number of years & months to PFS and OS. If anyone here has, please share it with us. I think it’s just common sense to limit sugar and fat consumption. I’m also confused by those who say certain supplements, many of which are concentrated extracts of natural foods (e.g. Sulforaphane supplements) don’t work, but adding the same same nutrients (broccoli) to your diet is good for you. I’m sure someone here can answer that one. Our cancers have the same name, but not exactly the same chemical and metabolic process in us as individuals. For example, just check the number of posts in here of guys who had to stop a certain therapy because either they couldn’t tolerate it, or it just didn’t work for them. I’d like to think otherwise, but I really don’t think this issue will ever be resolved in this forum.
And how about other variables...positive attitude, prayer, thankfulness, exercise, limiting stress, practicing “mindfulness”, etc. as adjuncts to our prescribed treatment? None of these things can be quantified. Some of us believe that a holistic approach is beneficial to not only improving our quality of life, but also slowing down the cancer progression clock. Others of us think it is all a bunch of hokum. Who is right? Who knows?
Having said that, best wishes to you all for a blessed and beautiful day. Life is good...even for those of us whose lives have been forever altered by this insidious and unforgiving disease. 😎🏌️⛳️
Tom,
You can actually accomplish two things (both are discussed by cancer researcher Dr. AKM Shamsuddin in his 2011 text "IP-6 and Inositol"): you can with a moderate dose of IP-6 & Inositol normalize cancer cells, or with a heavy dose trigger apoptosis also (programmed cell death). (There is a third which I do not discuss here which is the goal of chemo - necrosis.) In the summer of 2015 I started an IP-6 and Inositol regimen - and did not tell my urologist I had done so. He was the doctor who dx me in 2012, GL 8, 2 mets to the pelvic bone. About 7 weeks later I was do for a check on my PSA. I was on Eligard and Casodex. He was expecting a PSA of at least 0.5 or higher, given normal disease progression. It came in at 0.1. He read the report and seemed very rattled by the score. He insisted on a DRE, which he had not performed since I was diagnosed in 2012. He administered a very thorough DRE and said during the process "you have no nodules in your prostate". I did not tell him I was on IP-6 for another 6 months.
I subsequently wrote an email to Dr. Shamsuddin at the University of Maryland Medical School where he teaches pathology and conducts cancer research. He was kind enough to respond and explained cell normalization has occurred apparently in my prostate and that is consistent with his research. Dr. Rajesh Agarwal at the University of Colorado - Denver is cited by Dr. Shamsuddin as the leader in prostate-focused cancer research. You can do a search on Agarwal at pubmed and read his cancer studies using IP-6.
I should emphasize when I dropped my PSA significantly with heavy daily doses of IP-6, I was not taking any other supplements. So my causal theory of that event points to IP-6; however, I followed that success with more supplements so causal explanations are impossible.
The absence of nodules was confirmed in Florida when I found a new urologist after our relocation from AZ. He did not believe my medical chart and said he would do a DRE and confirm the absence of nodules. He did so and his DRE was very thorough. Eventually he concluded and confirmed he could not find any evidence of cancer in my prostate. Since 2016 he routinely performs DREs and has never been able to identify a nodule.
I too take IP-6. What do you mean by “heavy dose”
My heavy dose in 2015 was 12 scoops daily in two divided doses (AM & PM on empty stomach mixed thoroughly in cold water). I have since increased it to 7 scoops twice daily. Dosing I have come to believe is a very personal matter. What works for me may be unnecessarily heavy for you.
Final addition of speculation on what is "necessary": A heavy dose may be a factor in eliminating androgen-independent cancer cells. You might call the androgen-dependent the "low-hanging fruit" in this battle. Knocking off the androgen independent is more of a challenge, as Dr. Shamsuddin points out. If your dose is increased it may only help you fight the beast.
Follow please.
I was stage 4 right out of the gate. Started vegetarian diet and supplements days after being diagnosed. I am still here 27 years later.
A new book just arrived...”eat to beat disease”. All scientific data backing up what foods impact cancer. Both feeding it and getting rid of it.
Foods can’t be stuck in a pill by pharmacy BUT TONS of research is done all the time. Everyone knows that green tea, curcumin, dark chocolate, veggies & fruits are good. And red meat, Sugar, processed foods, fake sugars FEED cancer. If you want to know why, read this book. If you have to eat anyways, why not eat to support your body and immune system. You will feel better and may even slow down the progression!
Nalakrats! I can't even tolerate Eligard, so I refused my 2nd shot. GL9, Ductal with 7 small liver mets from PyL PSMA Scan (no bone), Not doing chemo unless someone can convince me that I can make it through without it killing me. Start writing please. Everything I see says 14 months, Doc started with 15 years, then 10, then 5, now won't confirm 14 months. QOL of what's left is the driver. I am not a quitter by nature, but this is different. after all, doesn't someone have to be part of the 30k?
dunno if you've tried bicalutamide (Casodex) - makes the PCa cells unable to "digest" testosterone (my PSA has been <0.1 for almost a year now, with testost. at 500+).
In 2012, routine blood test turned up PSA had gone from below 4 to12.5, i ignored it due to being dx with bone marrow MDS cancer, which seemed worse. about 2 yrs later, i got around to the PCa with a PSA over 17 -- used a bunch of herbal/veggy smoothies, supplements, semi-keto diet, lowered it to 14.8 - finally succumbed to biopsy, GL 4+3 sent me to uro-onc who offered to remove the gland, which i will never do, so put me on casodex. can still orgasm but no wood to speak of... more like al dente spaghetti. but i'm alive.
Rich, I forgot to ask how many mg bicalutamide, my Onc wants me to take 50mg, same as the first 30 days before the dreaded 3 month Eligard shot.
same as you, 50mg. i'm gonna stay on it until/if my PSA wakes up. if it does, gonna try 100mg, then test in 3 months. lupron will be next step, which i dread because that will drop my lovely 500+ testosterone level. T is great stuff, for so many other metabolic processes, including brain functioning, mood elevator, male energy, etc. Pretty sure dropping that hormone will be pretty damn depressing. ah well, always have the guys here and in other support groups.
Great it worked for you till here! What do you take more besides 50mg casodex? Which Gleason score do you have, no cancer outside the gland, did you do a PSMA PET CT? Did you check you other hormone levels (estradiol, DHT)?
Great question and funny timing. I'm just coming off my second five day fast protocol from Dr. Valter Longo, Director of The Longevity Institute, USC. It is not a true fast but what is referred to as a " Fasting Mimicking Diet"
I was diagnosed a year ago at the tender age of 54 with stage 4 MPC with spread to spine, ribs and pelvic lymph nodes. Started ADT therapy and quickly came unglued (also had two rounds of LU-177 this year) I have always been fit and athletic. The immediate weight gain, muscle loss and fat accumulation totally screwed me up and I starting drinking and eating in a way I had never done. Gained 12 LBS in 6 weeks. I finally got my act together 6 months ago and did a deep dive into nutrition and stumbled upon Dr. Valter Longo as well as intermittent fasting (IF). I went from 192 to to 180 through IF and lost another 8 LBS on the FMD diet. The lost weight was mostly trunk fat. My pants are hanging off me now.
Full discloser- I am a big sceptic of fad diets and alternative medicine. I have no idea if fasting can cure cancer but I firmly believe it can help us tolerate the treatment better.
Apologies for the sloppy post but I'm pressed for time and very excited about this subject. I will post a more cogent response to this question soon. As Nalakrats said it would require a 10 page dissertation!
Gyancey
I follow Dr. Valter Longo and his amazing work on fasting. He is one of the worlds leading investigators in this field. I have listened to his many podcasts with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. People for hundreds of years have practiced fasting using the bodies own ability to fight disease. I recommend googling him and reading his research. His work has been published in Cell and many other prestigious journals.
I think the moral of the story here is - your body your choice Hmmm any Republicans here?
Starve a cold... feed a fever.....
Good Luck, Good Health and Good Humor.
j-o-h-n Monday 06/24/2019 7:32 PM DST
Can’t wait thanks
I hope to read you asap. Kind regards.