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.
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.
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.
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...
"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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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!!!!!
"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."
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.
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!
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!
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.
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.....
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.
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