This was from a prospective study (PLCO) among 49,472 men with follow-up of 11 years. They filled out food diaries at the start. "Total dairy product consumption was not statistically significantly associated with risk of any prostate cancer or stratified by disease severity. "
Cow juice is OK: This was from a... - Advanced Prostate...
Cow juice is OK
Written by
Tall_Allen
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88 Replies
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I'm never drinking milk again because you called it cow juice.
in reply to BarronS
Me either!👏🏼
According to my mother, after I was weaned from her breast, I would never drink cow milk. To this day I do not remember ever drinking milk. However, I have never had an aversion to breast. Therefore, could breast not milk be a contributor to this scourge.🤪
THIS, NOW...after I switched from my fat free Lactaid (which I loved) to watery Almond milk. I've been doing this watery crap for a long time now....MOO MOO.
I want MILK
j.
The almond milk I make fresh isn’t watery but I do find store bought almond milk watery.
You will not convince the drs at MDA that PC isn’t caused by animal fat we eat or drink. At least my dr there. His theory is if it doesn’t come out of the ground don’t eat it. He considers breast and prostate cancer to be the disease of the affluent. He cities the amount of processed food and food in general that is available in this country. I have a hard time lying to him.
Tall_Allen in reply to
It's true that as fewer children die from malnutrition, they live longer, and older people are more likely to get prostate and breast cancer. So if more children died of malnutrition, there would certainly be lower incidence of most cancers, and cancer would be a lesser cause of death.
in reply to Tall_Allen
Obviously my radiation group were the lucky ones that had Gleason 8 and above. There were 11 of us. 4 were in their 80s 2in their 70s then me at a young 67. The other 4 were 58,50 and 2 at 43. All aggressive. One 43 year old had reoccurrence after surgery. The other 43 year old had 25 rounds and getting seeds after. The fifty year old was reoccurring after surgery. The 58 year old same reoccurring. You can do the percentage but I say that 35 % were young. Not just old age.
Shooter1 in reply to
Guess us old fogies just got lucky. 69, stage 4, Gleason 9/10 since dx at 66.
6357axbz in reply to
MDA is my treatment center as well. Who are your docs there? Mine has never said a word about diet.
in reply to 6357axbz
Radiologist Dr Shaw. MO dr Corn. Dr Corn’s part is coming later so didn’t talk much. Hopefully never need him.
Jbooml in reply to
These kinds of messianics shouldn't be let into any college let alone one treating seriously its cancer patients. shame on these useless governing authorities.
in reply to Jbooml
What governing authorities? They don’t care if you get PC. They make a bunch of money off you because you have it.
As I looked at all the people that worked at the hospital when I was there for two months there were the healthy looking to the not so healthy looking. Without a doubt Dr Shaw lives what he believes and looks it. Giving up everything that has animal fat is tough for me so I do the best I can and my wife watches me like a hawk. There is too much cancer out there to not be related to what we eat and breath.
Mohopes in reply to
My husband's dr is Dr Corn. He has asked him numerous times about diet and he has declined to discuss it saying it wasn't as important as keeping weight on.
Many times Research is corrupted by profiteers to defame perfectly fine foods.
They came out with conclusion that potato increases risk of cardiac illness.
Only later, it was found out that they used "french fries" and labelled it potato.
Milk does body good...I eat yogurt every single day and love this as my source of calcium and probiotics.
Same here. I love the home made "yogurt" that my wife makes and eat it every day, sometimes twice a day. Cheers !!
in reply to LearnAll
Without sugar, yogurt is the best form of dairy . Love it. The rest is bad for us .
Those of you who avoid cow's milk: What do you put on your cereal in the morning? Or perhaps you have bacon and eggs for breakfast, which of course is more healthy than shredded wheat and milk.
I've started using yogurt with cereal or oatmeal. I buy the plain grass-fed organic variety, it's a little bitter with cereal, but I've gotten used to it. Sometimes I just eat my cereal/oatmeal like a horse, straight hand to mouth, saves time and money for dairy.
I thought maybe a little jack daniels on the cereal but then i stuck with the cow juice.
in reply to Gearhead
I’m sending this to my wife. I miss my bacon and eggs. I get an omelet every now and then but not often enough.
Thank you for sharing this Tall_Allen. I have never stopped drinking or eating dairy products because I enjoy them. When my tastebuds were affected by chemo last fall, I found lots of things, including water, tasted bad. Milk was one food that tasted fine and I drank a lot of it.
Where did all the prior conventional wisdom about milk and cancer come from?
It must have had some clinical source, didn't it?
I have continued to eat milk and cheese as there weren't too many approved sources of protein. I never felt good about it. This makes me feel better.
But there must have been some source for all that prior conventional wisdom. Does anyone know what that was... and how its bonafides compare with this study?
Almost all studies have been retrospective and only showed association, not causation. It once more shows why levels of evidence is important.
Good post, thank goodness, I can go back to drinking 2 gallons of milk a week 
No, really I've moderated my voracious milk drinking, and cut back to 1/2 gallon a week and now only buy grass-fed organic milk. Good to know it's probably not a primary factor in getting PCa.
Hmmm
It seems the result wasn't quite so clean:
"The only statistically significant finding in our stratified analyses was a positive association between high-fat dairy product intake and late-stage prostate cancer risk (HR = 1.37, 95% CI = 1.04–1.82, P-trend = 0.02). However, associations with high-fat dairy intake did not differ by stage (P = 0.15), suggesting a chance finding for the positive association with late-stage prostate cancer."
It would seem to indicate something going on with milk fat.
Though I think the traditional scare was about casinate protien if my memory serves me. Correct?
They are referring to a research problem known as "p-hacking." If you look for enough associations, you will find some that are statistically significant just by random probabilities. Their point is that the inconsistent finding with association by stage points to this kind of statistical anomaly and not a true finding.
I have seen all kinds of reasons given: fats, proteins, sugar, calcium, IGF-1, adulteration with growth hormones... none have proven out.
That makes sense. Sort of like confirmation bias.
Well the best solution generally is moderation in everything. In a world of imperfect information that is probably a good baseline to always start with.
It really is a controversial area. Lots of epidemiological studies tend to think that there is some association (usually mild) with eating dairy products, from and including milk, and the risk of getting prostate cancer (see summary below).
'Milk and Dairy Product Consumption and Prostate
Cancer Risk andMortality: An Overview of
Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (2019)'
This has been argued by the likes of the Campbell's in 'The China Study' , Jane Plant in 'Prostate Cancer" and others. They bolster their a case for this by describing the various possible biochemical reasons why prostate cancer may be initiated or indeed progress more readily.
As I am a moderate I have attempted to drink/eat less dairy product but when I see a good smelly French brie or thick cream that wont pore out of the bottle , I do go weak at the knees. =Rob.
That's exactly why patients should not change therapy based on epidemiological studies.
This seems to talk about pre diagnosis dairy intake and cancer risk. It does not say anything about dairy and prostate cancer progression.
Why would you think that post-diagnosis dairy has any effect?
Excellent news I will start to grow back my Kefir mushroom
I don’t consume any dairy product personally regardless of what the study shows. That’s my choice, however; I hope someone finds this useful.
Thanks for posting this. Good to know that there’s no need for me to give up milk or yogurt or ice cream.
You can do as you wish but consuming milk from cows fed hormones to make them produce more milk can not be healthy for people fighting Pca.
Probably best for everyone to limit themselves to grass fed organic milk
in reply to Magnus1964
I’m with you Magnus 😎
In 2004, during a six month chemotherapy- hormone therapy trial. My research medical oncologist forbid me to have any dairy products, period. The reason, association with causation unknown and he did not want his trial skewed. The same went for all supplements. Even otc drugs had to have his approval. Some were ok, some not.
I chuckle because he did allow me one cup of Bluebell ice cream a month. Who would deny a small portion of the ice cream of a Texas?
Cheers,
Gourd Dancer
I believe there was a retrospective study comparing the Japanese population before WW2 and after...when the Japanese diet changed to more processed foods and dairy introduced by the western diet. Breast and Prostate cancers increased.
I do believe a high calorie diet w little to no exercise can cause higher incidence of morbidity...cancers, heart disease (inflammation)
Many hard working farmers lived a rip old age and ate what every they wanted.
I also think having milk w your grape nut flakes, after a diagnosis of Prostate cancer, wont make one bit of difference.
I do believe Exercise and eating well however will make you feel better, it’s just logic.
A balanced diet, exercise and not over eating is key to improving your health.
And then there’s the randomness of the genetic lottery which for now, none of us can control.
Thanks for bringing up this subject, as it has not been resolved. Various studies have gone either way - in line with proving whatever hypothesis needs proving. More work needed here to find the truth. I suspect that once you have Pca, the sugar content of the milk is a big problem as you can get a sugar spike in minutes. So my guess is that milk is OK in sip quantities - like in tea or coffee, but in bigger quantities adds to the sugar spike from things like cereal (even watered down 50% I get an 8.3 sugar reading which is likely in "doing damage" territory). Eat your porridge slowly! Full cream is lower GI than skimmed.
monte1111 in reply to
Please, sir, I want some more.
My advice...eat when you’re so hungry you’d eat the assh0l€ out of a skunk...that simple advice has served me very well over the years...spare metastatic stage 4 cancer
"There is no or little evidence of an association of linoleic or arachidonic acids with PCa risk."
link.springer.com/article/1...
"the results suggest that ARA exposure is not associated with increased breast and prostate cancer risk."
bmccancer.biomedcentral.com...
These are about risk in the general population. I am simply saying that this does not prove that dairy does no harm to a prostate cancer patient, and especially to one with the aggressive type where diet may matter.
That may or may not be true - but there is no data on which to even support your hypothesis. You might as well state that water may harm a prostate cancer patient with an aggressive PC. What is the point of making things up?
in reply to FSB12
Agreed!
Here's an updated meta-analysis that concludes: " In conclusion, although there are some data indicating that higher consumption of dairy products could increase the risk of prostate cancer, the evidence is not consistent."
academic.oup.com/advances/a...
Consistency is important and is necessary according to the Bradford Hill checklist. All the cohort studies in the world (and their meta-analysis) do not prove causation.
To understand the problem with unexpected significance in subgroups, you may be interested in this:
I agree with DoctorSH. "p-hack" could be an indication for (among other things) mis-specification of the model. You cannot just pick and chose which p-values you accept or reject, without an appropriate statistical test to back up your hypothesis - it's sloppy math. Not saying that biostatisticians who crunched the numbers are imbeciles or have an agenda - perhaps a little over-enthusiastic to publish.
I for one stopped dairies altogether after reading thru the population studies (with their limitations). Perhaps in moderation, and with good quality control, dairies may be harmless.
I don't know of any mammals that drink milk as adults as part of their regular diet. I suppose you can say they don't have access to it, but the fact remains.
Fortunately, the top medical organizations, journals, FDA, and research statisticians disagree with you. They now require that all published research pre-specify endpoints, and routinely reject those that go on a fishing expedition of subgroups. They must also discuss consistency or inconsistency and try to explain it. There has been a recent call to raise the statistical significance level in medical research to 0.005 because of the high number of irreproducible false positives.
You completely missed my point Allen. The issue is not intentional/unintentional misrepresentation or fraud. I give the researchers the benefit of the doubt. All that the medial community and FDA are doing to prevent inconsistencies and intentional errors are great. But not enough.
I have to admit, I don't know how rigorously the medical publications/FDA/peer reviews dig into the research pieces. Do they try to replicate the results (very trivial), or do they really get into the weeds: data, hypothesis, methods, model and the statistical tools and proofs? I can't say for sure, but I'm fairly certain they do not. They just don't have the bandwidth.
And in this particular example, the authors one liner "..suggesting a chance finding for the positive association with late-stage prostate cancer" is a far cry from a rigorous discussion of "consistency or inconsistency and try to explain it". That's the one that I have a problem with. If they have presented a robust argument for their claim to the publisher/regulator, I'm not aware. But as it stands it's sloppy, and weakens the claim. If it is in fact robust, they may have said "we have shown it to be a chance finding". They are not convinced, and neither should we.
As a side note, you can get a very low p-value and still have a model that is mis-specified or suffers from other statistical errors.
I'm not going to continue on discussing this any further in here (can do in private msg). We can agree to disagree.
Well, I think this is an interesting and important discussion.
Researchers do spend a LOT of time and energy worrying about such things. You wrote, " do they really get into the weeds: data, hypothesis, methods, model and the statistical tools and proofs? I can't say for sure, but I'm fairly certain they do not. They just don't have the bandwidth." What you call "the weeds" is exactly what medical publications/FDA/peer reviewers would call "the basics." It is only patients who are unfamiliar with those basics who ignore them. It is because the professionals pay attention to those things that we can rely on peer-reviewed publications in a way that we can never rely on random sites on the internet.
The inconsistency they point out is what weakens the claim to the contrary. What argument other than random variation of p's in subgroups as proved by inconsistencies do you need? Because subgroups are suspect anyway (because of Type 2 errors, explained below), that is enough for anyone who spends time worrying about such things.
You are right that low p values do not insure lack of error. Low p only disproves the null hypothesis, but it does not prove the counter-hypothesis. For that, we have to look at sample size. Many trials are underpowered to prove the counter-hypothesis, leading to false positives. Of course, methodology has to be taken into account. Things like internal consistency, replicability, and applicability are important too.
Patients who don't want to get into "the weeds," as you call it, must be careful in criticizing studies because we all suffer from confirmation bias. Even with peer review, mistakes are made. If you follow the post-publication comments written to the journals, they are sometimes as useful or more so, than the original article.
I really didn't want to follow up - but maybe this last one
Not being condescending, but a brief background for general population who may not know what Allen is talking about (Type I and Type II errors):
"The difference between a type II error and a type I error is that a type I error rejects the null hypothesis when it is true (a false negative). The probability of committing a type I error is equal to the level of significance that was set for the hypothesis test. Therefore, if the level of significance is 0.05, there is a 5% chance a type I error may occur.
The probability of committing a type II error is equal to 1 minus the power of the test, also known as beta. The power of the test could be increased by increasing the sample size, which decreases the risk of committing a type II error."
The power of the test increases with square root of the sample size, the confidence interval, and inversely with the standard deviation.
Now back to Allen:
Whatever you are describing as "basic" I would not even consider basic - noone does. This is sub-basic to ckeck on type 1 and 2 errors. Most statistical software output them routinely. When I talk about "weeds", I'm talking about several layers deep. And I'm only discussing it because I'm familiar with the type of errors that happen when investigation is not thorough. We have that issue in financial market modeling all the time (different data structure, similar fundamentals).
I am not following you at all here: "What argument other than random variation of p's in subgroups as proved by inconsistencies do you need?" What are p's? and what is their "random variation"? And why is a subgroup analysis is so different besides the power (what if it was ONLY the subgroup analysis with the given data? should be accept the analysis as is?)
To be fair, there are a lot of smart statisticians on board of most of these institutions. My point, again, is not that the conclusion is wrong - I don't know what other evidence they have shown their peers. My point is that the last part of the research AS IT STATED HERE, should not persuade or dissuade people about the effect of dairies. Patients need to get into the "weeds". Otherwise they will fall into a trap.
I'm glad you replied, because this is actually more important than it seems. To answer your questions:
"What are p's?"
p is the statistic that describes the probability that a difference arose purely by chance.
"and what is their "random variation"?
Samples are drawn at random from a population. Think of a 12-core TRUS biopsy, for example, which is just of sample of all the tissue (the population) in the prostate. You might miss the cancer entirely, getting an erroneous picture. Or you might hit only the cancer, also giving an erroneous picture. Sometimes an experiment will show too little cancer, sometimes too much. There is always a chance that you will reject the null hypothesis in error due to random variation. The more things you look for in the same dataset, the greater your chance of finding a significant one in error.
"And why is a subgroup analysis is so different besides the power (what if it was ONLY the subgroup analysis with the given data? should be accept the analysis as is?)"
The way you framed the question, I doubt you understand what power is. An underpowered study cannot address the problem of false positives. Subsets divide the already random sample into smaller units. That's why researchers are careful to explain when an analysis is a subset - it doesn't have the explanatory power of the whole. Worse yet is an unplanned subset, because it raises suspicion that the researcher was just shopping for significant p's until he found one - this is called "p-hacking" or "data mining."
In this article, Mother Jones called the chart that shows the shift by journals to only accepting planned analyses "The Chart of the Decade."
motherjones.com/kevin-drum/...
BTW- Power is especially important in determining small effects, such as those from the diet or environment. When the probability of an effect size is small, as they undoubtedly are, the required sample size goes up exponentially. This is what hampers most research on diet and environmental variables.
I sent a chat to respond - The thread is getting too long.
My thanks to you and snoraste for this enlightening discussion.
What patients need to be careful not to do is to apply results of studies to themselves when they are not part (or significantly large part) of the population being studied. The original study was about prostate cancer risk to the general population. For people who already have prostate cancer the following may be a more relevant study:
urology.jhu.edu/newsletter/... .
I don't think that's the link you meant.
We are also the only animal that has completely re-engineered the genome of all plants and animals we eat, cooks many of our foods, and eats created foods (eg., bread, cheese, mayonnaise, etc.). I can't think of a single food that we haven't changed.
in reply to Tall_Allen
That’s the problem
Chocolate chip ice cream (two scoops).
Good Luck, Good Health and Good Humor.
j-o-h-n Wednesday 06/26/2019 6:01 PM DST
Cow juice is OK
youtube.com/watch?v=UMVjToY...
Good Luck, Good Health and Good Humor.
j-o-h-n Wednesday 06/26/2019 9:10 PM DST
Green onions this time of the year. My favorite treat.
BTW It's rumored that Louis Comfort Tiffany used cow's urine in his mix to create his beautiful colored glass. His working studio was located at 43rd Avenue and 97th Place, Corona, Queens, NYC.
Good Luck, Good Health and Good Humor.
j-o-h-n Thursday 06/27/2019 7:38 PM DST
If diet has an effect, it is over a lifetime. It is doubtful that changes you make now will have any effect. But it does make patients feel better to take active steps that they think will improve their situation. So, as long as the diet is not extreme, why not?
in reply to Tall_Allen
I’d say you are right. 67 years of working and never exercised a day in a gym is my background. I think I’ve seen posts that say guys in good shape or at least better shape when diagnosed do better and live longer than those that don’t make changes. I don’t know that for a fact. Hope so.
Facts are more important than hopes.
It does seem a bit like closing the barn door after the cow got out, doesn’t it? If what you say is true then it would make far more sense for me to change my diet than for my husband the cancer patient to do so. I might still have a chance at affecting change in my health risks.
For sure.
Yes we have nothing to bitch about. Wish him luck for me.
I stopped drinking cow's milk for a few years and drank predominantly soy milk. This was over concern about IGF-1 (and similar) stimulating my PC. This data is at least partially reassuring. But there is still lingering concern over IGF-1 and mTOR signaling effects on cancers including PC. ( I drink both cow and soy milks at present anyway.)
i.e.
Front Nutr. 2019 May 14;6:62. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2019.00062. eCollection 2019.
Dairy Products: Is There an Impact on Promotion of Prostate Cancer? A Review of the Literature. Vasconcelos A1, Santos T2,3,4, Ravasco P5,6, Neves PM6.
Abstract
This review of the literature aims to study potential associations between high consumption of milk and/or dairy products and prostate cancer (PC). Literature is scarce, yet there is a direct relationship between mTORC1 activation and PC; several ingredients in milk/dairy products, when in high concentrations, increase signaling of the mTORC1 pathway. However, there are no studies showing an unequivocal relationship between milk products PC initiation and/or progression. Three different reviews were conducted with articles published in the last 5 years: (M1) PC and intake of dairy products, taking into account the possible mTORC1signaling mechanism; (M2) Intake of milk products and incidence/promotion of PC; (M3) mTORC1 activation signaling pathway, levels of IGF-1 and PC; (M4) mTORC pathway and dairy products. Of the 32 reviews identified, only 21 met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed. There is little scientific evidence that directly link the three factors: incidence/promotion of PC, intake of dairy products and PC, and PC and increased mTORC1 signaling. Persistent hyper-activation of mTORC1 is associated with PC promotion. The activity of exosomal mRNA in cellular communication may lead to different impacts of different types of milk and whether or not mammalian milks will have their own characteristics within each species. Based on this review of the literature, it is possible to establish a relationship between the consumption of milk products and the progression of PC; we also found a possible association with PC initiation, hence it is likely that the intake of dairy products should be reduced or minimized in mens' diet.
Unfortunately, potent IGF-1 inhibitors have failed to benefit men with prostate cancer.
Allen, I'm going to assume you've seen this study and would be interested in your take. I'm no scientist, but here's a section from study:
"On average, patients consumed 5.0 servings/day of total dairy products at diagnosis. In the whole population, high-fat milk intake was not associated with prostate cancer-specific death (95% CI: 0.78, 2.10; p-trend = 0.32; multivariate-adjusted model). However, among patients diagnosed with localized prostate cancer, compared to men who consumed <1 servings/day of high-fat milk, those who drank ≥3 servings/day had an increased hazard of prostate cancer mortality (HR = 6.10; 95% CI: 2.14, 17.37; p-trend = 0.004; multivariate-adjusted model). Low-fat milk intake was associated with a borderline reduction in prostate cancer death among patients with localized prostate cancer. These associations were not observed among patients diagnosed with advanced stage prostate cancer. Our data suggest a positive association between high-fat milk intake and prostate cancer progression among patients diagnosed with localized prostate cancer."
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/281...
Yes, I've seen it. Why do you mention it? What kind of Swedish men drink high fat vs low fat milk?
Well, as I said, I'm no scientist, just thought it was germane to the subject at hand. Although being distinctly Non-Swedish I'd have no idea!
I didn't ask that to be a smart-ass - I asked that because that speaks to why observational studies tell us so little. Men who drink high fat milk may do a LOT of things differently from men who drink low fat milk (e.g., higher incidence of metabolic syndrome, eat less heart-healthy diets, monitor their health less frequently, etc.) There may be many reasons that are really causing it, any of which may only be associated with high-fat milk consumption. Also, nordic populations have evolved to carry a gene that allows for animal milk digestion, so it is not at all clear that any conclusion is generalizable to other populations.
Beautiful answer, Allen: informative, concise, insightful. I was not being snippy myself (or at least trying to...). Your invaluable contributions here speak for themselves.
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