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Advanced Prostate Cancer

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Increasing Vegetable Intake Does Not Slow Prostate Cancer

Balsam01 profile image
35 Replies

A behavioral intervention that increases vegetable consumption does not reduce the risk for progression of early-stage prostate cancer, according to a study published in the Jan. 14 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

THURSDAY, Jan. 16, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- A behavioral intervention that increases vegetable consumption does not reduce the risk for progression of early-stage prostate cancer, according to a study published in the Jan. 14 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

J. Kellogg Parsons, M.D., from the UC San Diego Moores Comprehensive Cancer Center in La Jolla, California, and colleagues randomly assigned 478 men aged 50 to 80 years with biopsy-proven prostate adenocarcinoma, stage cT2a or less, to either a counseling behavioral intervention by telephone promoting consumption of seven or more daily vegetable servings or a control group that received written information about diet and prostate cancer (237 and 241 men, respectively). The primary analysis included 443 men.

The researchers identified 245 progression events (124 and 121 in the intervention and control groups, respectively). Time to progression did not differ significantly between the groups (unadjusted hazard ratio, 0.96 [95 percent confidence interval, 0.75 to 1.24]; adjusted hazard ratio, 0.97 [95 percent confidence interval, 0.76 to 1.25]). For the intervention and control groups, the 24-month Kaplan-Meier progression-free percentages were 43.5 and 41.4 percent, respectively (difference, 2.1 percent; 95 percent confidence interval, −8.1 to 12.2 percent).

"We now have good evidence that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables and light on red meat is not likely to impact need for treatment," a coauthor said in a statement. "But this study does not provide justification for eating anything you want, either."

Several authors disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

Published in Urology; original article here: jamanetwork.com/journals/ja...

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Balsam01
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35 Replies
TEBozo profile image
TEBozo

Toxins and pesticides from the non organic fruits and vegetables in all likelihood contribute to a lot of different cancers including prostate. :-(

Currumpaw profile image
Currumpaw in reply to TEBozo

Hey TEBozo!

A glass of Roundup a day?

This food contains so much and is within the limit and that food has so much and is well within the limit. Add it up, especially when someone eats humongous amounts of food.

Currumpaw

Buddy_Blank profile image
Buddy_Blank in reply to TEBozo

Organic fruits and vegetables also contain toxins and pesticides - natural ones.

Shanti1 profile image
Shanti1 in reply to Buddy_Blank

At lease we have a history of evolution with plant compounds, as mammals, we have interacted with them for millennia, so our bodies have pathways to detoxify them. In fact some of these plant "pesticides" are the same polyphenols that have a hormetic effect on our bodies, stimulating longevity genes such as SIRTs and upregulating NRF2, our internal antioxidant pathway.

Buddy_Blank profile image
Buddy_Blank in reply to Shanti1

That's not correct: "the most toxic chemicals to humans are completely natural! Not only that, but there is much evidence that natural pesticides allowed in organic farming are just as toxic as synthetic pesticides" blogs.scientificamerican.co...

TEBozo profile image
TEBozo in reply to Buddy_Blank

Yes but instead of 30.......3

LearnAll profile image
LearnAll

"several authors of this research disclosed financial ties to pharmaceutical industry"

See that ! These are pseudo researchers who have TIES (money ties) with big pharma to plant contrary research to confuse patients. I am familiar with this game.

JAMA journal is a third class publication..Its more like a trade union magazine..unreliable.

Pleroma profile image
Pleroma in reply to LearnAll

I agree with LearnAll. Completely invalidated any results due to self-interest bias.

Gemlin_ profile image
Gemlin_ in reply to LearnAll

LearnAll -

You’re probably not familiar with the world’s top medical journals – that is, the BMJ, The Lancet, the JAMA and the NEJM.

The JAMA is the world’s most widely circulated journal and has an impact factor of 30.

Curious on which journals are on your list of first class publications?

LearnAll profile image
LearnAll in reply to Gemlin_

Other 3 , I agree, Not JAMA as JAMA is medical association journal .AMA is just a trade union of doctors..very political. NEJM is the topmost.

softwaremom00 profile image
softwaremom00

I thought Dr Dean Ornish had shown that a plant based diet along with exercise and mediation may help early stage Prostate Cancer. ornish.com/wp-content/uploa...

cashlessclay profile image
cashlessclay in reply to softwaremom00

Also of interest:

journals.sagepub.com/doi/ab...

journals.sagepub.com/doi/pd...

What these food fights are all about here is that we have two groups. One group is willing to make major modifications to their life style, and the other is not. Neither choice is unreasonable, it's personal choice. If you are willing to make these changes, there is ample evidence that a clean diet can do wonders for overall health. If your not willing, you will find reason to reject all such studies.

My PSA is the lowest it has been in three years, using only diet and exercise. I have been doing this for 7 years, and getting better at it all the time. Knowing what I know now, the MEAL study doesn't pass the giggle test. It takes a serious effort to impact cancer progression. More vegetables, less meat is not serious. I have killed my diet by presoaking my steel cut oatmeal, by cooking it with too much water, by adding too much of any kind of milk, and by adding too much fruit. All have ruined good diets, by impacting the insulin response to the meal. There was no "partial credit", in each case the diet became useless, with PSA doubling times equal to my "no diet at all" values. There are many other ways to ruin an otherwise good diet, and the MEAL study does not appear to be aware of any of them.

Currumpaw profile image
Currumpaw in reply to cashlessclay

Hey cashlessclay!

Keep doing what works for you.

Currumpaw

monte1111 profile image
monte1111 in reply to cashlessclay

Food fight!

So for the last 5 years I have been snacking on carrots and celery at night instead of potato chips for nothing. Heartbreaking news.

monte1111 profile image
monte1111 in reply to

Sorry. We are not rabbits. My canine teeth were meant for potato chips.

Magnus1964 profile image
Magnus1964

They counseled these men by telephone!!!!! There is no information as to whether these subjects ate meat or not!!!! This is bogus science at its worst.

Was this study sponsored by the beef council?

Balsam01 profile image
Balsam01 in reply to Magnus1964

prostatecancerinfolink.net/...

Here are more thoughts on this study.

Magnus1964 profile image
Magnus1964 in reply to Balsam01

Thanks for this post. In addition to the short duration of this study it is never mentioned whether the subjects were total vegetarians or did they continue to meat and meat byproducts only that they were encouraged to eat more vegetables. This alone would invalidate the study.

monte1111 profile image
monte1111 in reply to Magnus1964

I think it was the Mystery Meat Council.

cbgjr profile image
cbgjr

BS

What are the diets of people who live in the "Blue Zones" ?

Currumpaw profile image
Currumpaw in reply to cbgjr

Hey cbgjr!

Nailed it!

Currumpaw

billyboy3 profile image
billyboy3

Excellent post Balsam, which is what I have been preaching for years. I do think that eating properly and looking after one's body, will help but in NO way will anything you eat or do, stop the growth of advanced prostate cancer, NOTHING. You might succeed in slowing progression but the fact is, this beast cannot be beaten with anything that mankind has as weapons as of today.

Live well, will large, but focus on enjoying your last days not spending it worrying and playing mad scientist in your kitchen because some lunatic spouts nonsense that cannot be scientifically supported. We call this snake oil salesman type!!!!!

kapakahi profile image
kapakahi

"a counseling behavioral intervention by telephone promoting consumption of seven or more daily vegetable servings"

Who was making sure the guys were actually eating seven or more daily vegetable servings, as opposed to listening to somebody on the phone telling him he should? If this story reports on the study correctly (and I have my doubts), all I get from it is that phone intervention pushing vegetables isn't very effective. And really, did they have to do a study to figure that out? Some stranger on nagging you on the phone seems if anything counter-productive. I think the researchers' funding is the only reason the study was done, the message being, "don't bother with vegetables, just take our drugs."

Magnus1964 profile image
Magnus1964 in reply to kapakahi

👍👍

Gemlin_ profile image
Gemlin_

Obviously there is great enthusiasm and hope on this forum that prostate cancer progression can be influenced by dietary modification. Some members share low quality studies with such messages, of no medical value, with the good intention to help.

When someone share a quality study like this, shared by Balsam, showing no cancer benefit, some members can not accept the findings. Incomprehensible to me!

Here are other quality studies that could not find that diet had an effect.

This large study found no significant association between fruit and vegetable intake and prostate cancer.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/147...

This study showed dietary modification, reducing fat and increasing fruits, vegetables and fibre, had no impact on PSA concentration.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/122...

I agree with billyboy "in NO way will anything you eat or do, stop the growth of advanced prostate cancer".

Currumpaw profile image
Currumpaw

Hey Balsam01!

I once had a primary care guy that told me that there was enough nutrition in McDonald's foods to sustain life. Yes, but what quality of life and for how long? I once had------you can finish that sentence!

Currumpaw

Balsam01 profile image
Balsam01 in reply to Currumpaw

Thank you all for your comments. When I run across an interesting article, I try and post it to the site following the advice of Darryl and TA to get it into the site's archives (to become searchable) because, apparently, links to these articles disappear eventually on the Internet. I'm not qualified to comment on these articles so I'm just a poster!

monte1111 profile image
monte1111 in reply to Currumpaw

My granddaughter sometimes drags me, kicking and screaming, to McDonald's. She just won't accept my argument that a pizza is nutritious, and actually tastes good.

Sillymary73 profile image
Sillymary73

Who funds $$$$$$ the American Cancer Society?

monte1111 profile image
monte1111 in reply to Sillymary73

That's silly Mary. Those who need a tax deduction.

dmt1121 profile image
dmt1121

Thank you for your post. My experience is that there are always conflicting results between studies for the same subject. It can depend on the parameters established, including types of vegetables, type of disease, ages, etc.

I think there is still ample evidence that a more vegetarian diet with less or no red meats is generally beneficial. I think much of the benefit of such diets should be considered within the context of maintaining one's general health to bolster our immune systems as much as possible.

Good information to add to the file cabinet though.....

Captsquid2u profile image
Captsquid2u

When I was diagnosed almost 4 years now, stage 4 Mets to the bones, the only way I found out it had spread to my bones was by going to a rheumatologist, I had many, too many to count, MRIs. bone scans, you name it, the rheumatologist told me my Drs. We’re letting me slip through the cracks, he called me from his home after I gave him a copy of my latest bone scan! But back back to diet, when I learned of my cancer, I went totally strict Vegan. My blood pressure dropped enough to cancel a few meds, my cholesterol dropped from 278 to 154! So I think vegetable , organic ones have to strengthen your immune system to fight the cancer.

Captsquid2u profile image
Captsquid2u

Thanks for all your comments, I love this group , wish I had more involvement, but I’m writing a book, and when I take a break I need to recharge.

Captsquid2u profile image
Captsquid2u

I’m on Lupron, Zytiga, xygeva, prednisone, and Vicodin, I could not get through the day without my Vicodin.

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