Is There A Potentially Game Changing ... - Advanced Prostate...

Advanced Prostate Cancer

20,997 members26,168 posts

Is There A Potentially Game Changing Treatment In The Pipeline?

DFL208 profile image
125 Replies

While I don't read the posts on clinical trials and studies with the same grasp of the topic as many on this site, it seems to me that often new treatments have incremental effect. That is, they add additional time before they too fail. I certainly am thankful that there are new treatments that add additional time, but I was wondering if there is any treatment in the pipeline that has shown credible evidence that it has the potential to bring a durable remission to a significant number of PCA patients. It seems that many treatments have disappointing results in the later trials, but I was wondering if there is anything specific in the pipeline that looks like a real contender.

Written by
DFL208 profile image
DFL208
To view profiles and participate in discussions please or .
Read more about...
125 Replies
garyi profile image
garyi

Just read the summaries from Tall Allen and you'll know more than most urologists.

E2-Guy profile image
E2-Guy in reply to garyi

I can't imagine that TA spends very much time on the golf course!

Magnus1964 profile image
Magnus1964

Many trials end in failure or with little significant outcomes. It is rare that a trial will show a great improvement in treatment. It does happen There are some trials out there now with complimentary drugs to improve the efficacy of standard drugs. I have been on one such trail. I am not sure what happened with the mystery drug but I have been on xtandi for nearly four years.

Longterm101 profile image
Longterm101

Unfortunately I think the answer is no

I pray and hope I’m wrong

I’m 56 and praying for a miracle

Based on what I read it doesn’t seem like the medications/drugs do much but extend life on average for about 3 months (ish) once you become CR

Travel to Europe for Liu177 gives a little longer lifeline

It would be nice to have operation warp speed now focus on a cancer cure

🙁🙁🙁

Tall_Allen profile image
Tall_Allen

Metastasized prostate cancer is "smarter" than anything we've thrown at it so far. It mutates freely and reproduces rapidly, so it eventually evolves into a resistant phenotype. It is also a tissue-based disease, protected by the microenvironment it creates. I'm very hopeful about the experimental FAPI drugs that target the tissue. I think that when the protective environment is stripped away, more of the cancer cells can be targeted.

prostatecancer.news/2019/12...

DFL208 profile image
DFL208 in reply to Tall_Allen

Thanks so much TA, the work on FAPI drugs seems to have the potential at the very least to expand knowledge of cancer's defense process and hopefully much more.

GP24 profile image
GP24 in reply to DFL208

I had a FAPI PSMA PET/MRI done about two weeks ago at a PSA value of 2.4 ng/ml. It did not detect any lesions. The RO said it is not as sensitive as a PSMA PET/CT. He used it successfully with breast cancer so far.

Tall_Allen profile image
Tall_Allen in reply to GP24

For FAPI to detect a lesion, there has to be significant "scar tissue" built up around it. The downside is the huge amount of false positives because all new scar tissue shows up (e.g., arthritis, wounds, tuberculosis, heart attacks). Prostate cancer seems to be in the middle of the pack in terms of FAPI-detectable cancers.

GP24 profile image
GP24 in reply to Tall_Allen

Not every scar tissue shows up, just cancer associated fibroblasts (CAFs). These are detected with an FAPI PET and they are different to normal scars.

This slide shows the difference between CAFs and normal fibroblasts: up.picr.de/40397510br.png

Here is a slide showing these CAFs in more detail: up.picr.de/40397509nq.png

A slide with key facts about CAFs: up.picr.de/40397511aw.png

Here is a FAPI PET/CT of a late stage patient who does not express a lot of PSMA, maybe due to long time ADT, but high uptake with FAPI: up.picr.de/40397512fi.png FAPI is expected to show PSMA negative prostate cancer as well because it does not depend on the PSMA expression.

A FAPI PET/CT can detect many different kinds of cancer, similar to an FDG PET/CT. Here are the observed uptake values for the differen tumor types: up.picr.de/40397513vt.png This shows that you can detect prostate cancer and also neuroendocrine prostate cancer which has a poor uptake though.

These slides were presented by Prof. Giesel at EMUC20.

I think you need a much higher PSA value for an FAPI PET/CT than for a PSMA PET/CT to detect lesions. My estimate now would be a PSA value of 10 or even higher. Also, a high Gleason score makes it more likely to detect lesions.

Tall_Allen profile image
Tall_Allen in reply to GP24

There are many false positives because of new non-cancer scar tissue showing up. These, for example. Dozens more examples:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/329...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/329...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/314...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/323...

GP24 profile image
GP24 in reply to Tall_Allen

Yes, FAPI is not as specific as PSMA. I forgot it also will also show arthritis well. So you need a good reader to analyse the images for PCa.

marnieg46 profile image
marnieg46 in reply to GP24

Though others might have better/contrary information , our PC specialist told us you need a PSA of 0.2 for the next PSMA PET.

GP24 profile image
GP24 in reply to marnieg46

The value of 0.2 does apply if you are not using hormone therapy. Then you can try to get a PSMA PET/CT at a PSA value of 0.2, although I think this is too low. You better wait for a PSA value of 1.5 or higher.

However, this does not apply when you are on ADT. The PSA value is low but the PSMA expression is just a bit reduced. I had a successful PSMA PET/CT at a PSA value of 0.09 ng/ml. So you just have to try, otherwise you have to wait until you get resistant and the PSA value rises while you get hormone therapy.

marnieg46 profile image
marnieg46 in reply to GP24

Thank you.... so on ADT (Lupron) a PSMA might pick up at 0.02.

My husband commenced Lupron in April 2019 after a fast rising PSA following RP and adjunct radiation and a PSMA showed a number of bone and lymph node metastasis. Since then PSA has gradually dropped to <0.01 (for 3 tests) until the last 2 which were 0.02. I'm just wondering, if there is another rise if we should actively ask for a second hormone, say Enzalutamide to be added? Maybe not Abi as he has AF.

I find we have to be proactive with this particular specialist and some of the guidelines say that if you have a PSA doubling within 10 months on first hormone a second hormone should be added. From my understanding of some of the trials and advice from well informed friends is that many men with my husband's profile would already be on a second hormone. If his PSA has moved from 0.02 should I just say we would like a new PSMA or would that not provide any useful information?

GP24 profile image
GP24 in reply to marnieg46

Until maybe two years ago, after RP and sRT and Lupron you would wait until the PSA value got above 2.0 ng/ml and then add Abi or Enzalutamide. The 10 months doubling time you mention is valid without ADT not on first ADT. The recommendation is to start ADT if this doubling time is present even if no metastases are visible.

Recently there were trials which reported an advantage to add Abi or Enzalutamide or Apalutamide to Lupron when there are bone mets - usually detected with a bone scan. However, I consider 0.02 still extremely low and therefore would not add this yet. So I understand your specialist.

I do not know if a PSMA PET/CT provides useful information at the moment. You know there are bone mets and the new PSMA PET/CT will show them again. As far as I understand, there are too many metastases to treat them with radiation. So this PET is not really needed, however, it is very cheap in Australia. So you could do it just to monitor the tumor progress. This will not cause a change in the current therapy.

podsart profile image
podsart in reply to Tall_Allen

As always, your newsletter is very informative.

Unfortunately, after many tries and you may have also tried on your end, I do not get this newsletter; I don’t know what else to try.

Tall_Allen profile image
Tall_Allen in reply to podsart

Sorry- I try to post links to articles here that are relevant to men with APC.

kick-prostate-cancer profile image
kick-prostate-cancer in reply to Tall_Allen

Thanks so much TA ... I read all of your posts with interested. Still hoping for a major breakthrough that will give my husband more time. You are really appreciated!!

GP24 profile image
GP24

I think the trial Allan recently mentioned will be a Game Changing treatment. This will offer radiation to the prostate plus metastases when the patient is diagnosed with PCa with distant metastases. Currently you can start with ADT plus Abiraterone or Chemo only.

healthunlocked.com/advanced...

noahware profile image
noahware

In my opinion, for anything to really "change the game" in PC treatment there needs to be a shift in focus, towards something other than androgens and androgen receptors. But the focus is likely to remain there, because the greatest amount of money to be made (within the existing system) is by developing treatments that FOLLOW the failure of existing treatments.

In other words, the focus continues to be on what can be done AFTER cancer has already been exposed to an androgen-oriented treatment. A real game-changer would be if newly discovered mPC was directly and initially treated by discovering a way to slow or reverse metastatic progression on the basis of the PC having absolute dependence on something other than androgen signaling.

[One example that looked promising a few years ago, but ended up failing, was oriented around the relationship between copper and PC. One yet to be fully explored involves zinc. Other possibilities include specific pathways, enzymes or amino acids, like methionine.]

It is heartening to see that some clinical trials might now be recruiting participants that have yet to fail chemical castration. But the essence of "the game" remains this: get castrated, let your cancer mutate and progress, and THEN look for ways to treat a more advanced form of cancer that has already been treated into treatment-resistance.

in reply to noahware

Hi noahware

I suspect that you might be right because that's pretty much what I've been doing in my own "one-man 4 year clinical trial".

I stopped conventional treatment 4 years ago after only 2 months of ADT. My PSA had dropped to 1.4, so I never achieved castrate level.

I made that very difficult decision back in early 2017 due to severe side effects and have only been taking Essiac tincture and CBD oil since then.

I still have my prostate and haven't had chemo or radiotherapy.

Four years later I'm living a completely normal life and doing great, so I don't regret my decision.

I'm not suggesting that anyone else should follow my example. We're all grownups capable of making our own decisions. I'm just reporting what I've done and my results so far.

If you click on my avatar picture you’ll be able to read my bio and some posts I started about those supplements and my own cancer journey.

I'm the first to admit that there's no peer reviewed scientific evidence to show that Essiac tincture or CBD oil are effective, but I've been taking them for 4 years and am more than happy with my results.

When I stopped ADT in early 2017 my oncologist assured me that my PSA would keep continually rising and my mets would spread further.

However, almost 4 years later my PSA is virtually the same as when I was first diagnosed December 2016 and my 2020 PSMA PET CT scan was better than my December 2016 PSMA PET CT scan.

I still see my oncologist every 3 months so he can keep a track of my progress.

He is amazed how well I'm doing as it's over 4 years since I was first diagnosed. He tells me to just keep doing what I've been doing because it seems to be working for me.

Here's a link to the post I started on this forum about my own cancer journey.

healthunlocked.com/advanced....

Best wishes to all

Dave

in reply to

Is there any other reason that has been given to you by medical professionals as to why your PSA would remain stable? Besides the tinctures I mean.

in reply to

No. My oncologist says he can't explain it at all, but tells me to keep doing what I've been doing because it seems to be working for me.

noahware profile image
noahware in reply to

[EDIT: I thought I recalled you saying you went vegan in one of your posts, but I just noticed that was not mentioned in your original post. Am I mistaken? If so, my apologies for the implications posted below!]

Thanks, Dave. I have indeed been reading your posts, and keep wondering: is one (or more) of Essiac ingredients doing something special, and what is the mechanism of action?

I have my own theory: you also changed your diet, and THAT is what is doing the heavy lifting in slowing your PC. But that's just a guess!

(Another additional possibility, in combination with either diet and/or supplementation, is that you have a relatively non-aggressive type of PC that is not so intent on growing fast and killing you, and you have reinforced its non-aggressive nature.)

I do think you should mention dietary changes when you post your great progress. You have to admit, for most guys, going vegan is not "living a completely normal life." But I'm starting to believe the the reduction of animal protein, more than animal fat, may be a key to slowing PC progression for SOME men.

in reply to noahware

I have not made any changes to diet or lifestyle, so I think you might be confusing me with someone else.

I'm definitely not vegan.

I love a good steak, eat the occasional burger and KFC. I choose classic coke over diet coke and adore ice cream.

I love riding my motorcycles and usually do 30 pushups a day.

I'm 5 foot 10 inches tall and weigh about 200lb so I'm not a gym junky either.

Dave

noahware profile image
noahware in reply to

Yeah, I realized after posting that I was confusing you with another member who was attributing his progress entirely to a supplement, while mentioning as an aside that he had also become a vegan. Sorry.

As much as I like to understand mechanisms that might explain the benefits of any alternative treatments, I am open to the fact that obvious mechanisms of action may not always reveal themselves. At the end of the day, if something is working then its working... the "why" and "how" of it is less important than the "is" of it!

BTW, do you have other labwork indications besides a stable PSA (and scans) that your PC is indeed not progressing? My worry for the future is that even as ADT (or something else!) seems to be keeping my PSA low that there will be progression of mets without either symptoms or PSA rise.

Presumably this possible "unseen" and "unfelt" progression would be reflected in some other biomarkers as well as scans. Are you doing labs that are also looking good?

[EDIT: I know you are reluctant to promote the specific brand of Essiac (I can remember SOME things!) but just wondering about the type and amount of CBD oil that you are using, too. Thanks, and regards.]

in reply to noahware

I just get regular type blood tests liver function etc and they are all ok.

I've had 4 PSMA PET CT scans so far paid for by Dept of Veterans Affairs and latest was better than first with distant metastases either resolved or smaller.

I'll message you with details of exactly what I take.

Dave

monte1111 profile image
monte1111 in reply to

Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. 30 pushups? I'll try to squeeze out 1 or 2, later.

lewicki profile image
lewicki in reply to noahware

Just for my information to what extent is a vegan diet. The max would be , no dairy, no meat, no fish and no added oil of any kind. Is this extreme necessary and would it help? Thanks

noahware profile image
noahware in reply to lewicki

Let me first point out that I was confusing Dave with another forum member!

It is not the types of fats but the types of protein (and other nutrients) that might be most significant for vegans.

There could be many possible benefits to dietary change, but the one I had in mind specifically would be that a diet of no meat, fish, eggs or dairy would likely result in significant reductions in the amino acid methionine (as well as vitamin B12), which could potentially be beneficial in terms of PC progression.

Patrick (pjoshea) has posted on this several times.

In a way, pursuing this might be even more extreme than being vegan, because it would mean also eliminating certain high-methionine vegan foods (like brazil nuts).

lewicki profile image
lewicki in reply to noahware

I have been fighting Pca for 22 years. Considering diets has been very much an interest. so at the age of 80 in April to nights dinner consisted of Pierogies ( polish dumplings -vegan ) fried in butter with onions ,Broccoli and Kielbasa. Washed down with a 16 oz. can of Guinnes Draught Stout and a can of Tyskie (an imported Polish beer ) . Reason for the beer is isotope treatments gave me dry mouth.Smaczny. Take that you darn prostate cancer demon.

noahware profile image
noahware in reply to lewicki

Nice!The problem with restrictive diets for most of us is, they DEFINITELY lower QoL.

Your dinner sounds like great QoL on a plate (and in a glass!).

lewicki profile image
lewicki in reply to noahware

I forgot the dollops of sour cream.

maley2711 profile image
maley2711 in reply to noahware

I'd do it if there were any sound studies showing significant longevity improvement?

ragnar2020 profile image
ragnar2020 in reply to noahware

Hi Noah,

I'm probably the forum member you're thinking about who switched to a strict vegan diet on 11/24/15, and since then eaten no dairy, animal based protein or anything else with a "face." FYI and others, after an adjustment period of about six months, I miss none of those foods that I no longer eat.

I believe, but cannot prove, that animal fats are as addictive as nicotine, so once that addiction has subsided, switching to a vegan diet is easy to adapt to, and something that must be learned to be fully enjoyed. You can make many many delicious vegan meals, but it is a relearning process, and the industrial animal food industry does not make it easy to find products. But the products are out there more and more, and restaurants are adapting also.

Whether a vegan dietary program benefits a guy with PCa is an open question and difficult to prove one way or the other. I changed my diet because of heart disease, and then I was diagnosed with aPCa. I probably had the PCa for thirty years growing quietly inside me. Did the switch to a vegan diet slow down the growth of the PCa? Who knows? I believe that meat and fish are full of chemicals that I am no longer ingesting, so I believe that this has been positive for my health.

I do know that a vegan diet stopped the progression of my CAD, and my digestion is a lot better since I stopped eating animal protein. My QOL has improved, but being diagnosed with PCa and getting a RP kicked the shit outta my sex life. Fortunately, I'm an old guy, and I'd enjoyed an active sex life prior to getting my prostate gland yanked out in 9/19. My PSA remains undetectable, but I fully expect to have BCR, and when that happens, I'll be looking at what to do next in order to stay alive for as long as possible with a decent QOL.

Take care,

Jeff

noahware profile image
noahware in reply to ragnar2020

Hey Jeff! It wasn't you, because I do remember you mentioning the diet. It was someone who was happy with what a particular non-SOC thing was doing for him (maybe IP6 ?) and then mentioned he had also gone vegan. So I remember the context, but not the guy.

If I happen to be on both a certain diet and a certain substance and getting results, I would be curious about whether good results are coming from one, or the other, or the synergy of both. But in the end, all that matters for any individual is getting results.

Once I was on my lower-protein keto, I felt great and lost extra belly fat, even with a bit of dairy, fish and meat. Getting rid of the insulin-spiking junk carbs was the key to that IMO. But that diet was hard in first adjusting and then hard to sustain.

Be well!

maley2711 profile image
maley2711 in reply to noahware

why would methionine inhibit cancer proliferation? or...we don't know, it just does?

maley2711 profile image
maley2711 in reply to noahware

in what way is animal protein different than non-animal protein ? if it is, why would cancer care?

noahware profile image
noahware in reply to maley2711

Animal protein is different because, as a rule, it contains much more of the amino acid methionine. And methonine, of all the amino acids, is the one that some cancers seem to have an "absolute dependence" upon.

If you search it on this forum you will see pjoshea has several posts on it, but here's just one article referencing it:

cancertreatmentreviews.com/...

" Methionine dependence in cancer may be due to one or a combination of deletions, polymorphisms or alterations in expression of genes in the methionine de novo and salvage pathways. Cancer cells with these defects are unable to regenerate methionine via these pathways. Defects in the metabolism of folate may also contribute to the methionine dependence phenotype in cancer. Selective killing of methionine dependent cancer cells in co-culture with normal cells has been demonstrated using culture media deficient in methionine. Several animal studies utilizing a methionine restricted diet have reported inhibition of cancer growth and extension of a healthy life-span. In humans, vegan diets, which can be low in methionine, may prove to be a useful nutritional strategy in cancer growth control. "

maley2711 profile image
maley2711 in reply to noahware

Ok, as I understand then, there seem to be some animal studies showing benefit in lowering that amino acid...so there is an unproven benefit for humans?

noahware profile image
noahware in reply to maley2711

Not only is it unproven, it is a benefit that would only apply to SOME humans: those with tumors that have methionine dependency.

Even if one knew his cancer had that status, it would be a difficult therapy to pursue, not as simple as "being vegan." Many vegan foods also contain methionine, so one would have to have a list of allowable foods and adhere to it. It might also require watching folate/folic acid.

On the bright side, that diet could allow cream, butter and lard, since those are fats and not proteins!

But I believe they are still pursuing drugs, rather than diets, that could limit the ability of cancers cells to either produce or utilize methionine.

45yrsDenmark profile image
45yrsDenmark in reply to

What percentage is the CBD oil you take and how much do you take? And what kind of Essiac tincture is it? I am not familiar what that... I have been thinking of CBD oil too to "do" something else than kust standard treatment like ADT, Zytiga, etc.. hoping it could also work for me... "If one wolf can howl, than it's proven that a wolf can actually howl"...

in reply to 45yrsDenmark

Just messaged you

Garp41 profile image
Garp41 in reply to

Dave,

Exactly which CBD oil are you taking/

Doug

in reply to Garp41

Just messaged you

DonV profile image
DonV in reply to

I too am curious about your treatment. Can you forward your treatment regimen? Thanks

in reply to DonV

Just messaged you

MyWifeMyLife profile image
MyWifeMyLife in reply to

Very interesting Dave, may I ask which Essiac tincture you take? Good going!

Best,

MyWifeMyLife

in reply to MyWifeMyLife

Just messaged you

s6driver profile image
s6driver in reply to

Just saw this thread. I'm interested in your regimen as well!

in reply to s6driver

Just messaged you

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner

I have not heard or read about any known treatment that cures Pca.The only exception to this dreadful truth for many men is where a man gets an RP that removes all prostate gland material before Pca has spread from PG.

Unfortunately, very soon after Pca develops in a man's PG, it immediately spreads, and after an RP a man may find his Psa goes to < 0.01, regarded as undetectable. But maybe years later his Psa rises, and becomes a threat, and usual medical response is to use 70 Grey EBRT to PG to kill whatever Pca is lurking in the region or where the RP was done. Some Pca may have been left behind in original RP, and maybe some material at RP site had some PG material that developed Pca over time. I know men where this happened and after the EBRT the Psa stayed low for years, But where spread happens before an RP, especially with a Gleason 8 to 10, then a man has a problem he may fight for next 20 years, and for this systemic cancer there is rarely any cure. I know this well, because I was diagnosed in 2009, 4 years too late because Psa was only 6 with Gleason 9, Pca all outside capsule, inoperable.

I was 62.

I had years of ADT, then salvation IMRT to PG, then Cosadex, Zytiga, Docetaxel, Lu177, and next thing is Ra223, and I may finish off with palliative chemo of Cabazataxel + carboplatin.

Many things come along that look like they might work, or should work, but they just don't, and or don't work for very long.

If there was a simple sure fix for Pca, other than having a successful RP, we all would hear about it instantly and it would immediately become available. The Cancer Industry would be drastically reduced but those working in it would find work elsewhere in the medical industry, and on such problems as keeping men alive after they survive from Pca. Nobody gets to live forever, and a large number of medical ppl are always finding new ways of extending out lifetimes, and stopping disease popping up to kill us when we are 90. It seems that if we did live to 200, we'd all have dementia by 105, and who pays for our care for next 95years? And we may not be aware of being alive or being cared for.

A possible Pca fix that is "in the pipeline" may not mature into available therapy for 5 more years, so we are all stuck with what becomes available soon enough.

In future, brain transplants could become possible, or brain replacement with quantum computers, but this won't occur next week, and its a disappointment to some with brain cancer. Would the wives of men with artificial brains still love those men? Maybe they would if they were nicer to talk to, and made more money to spend on holidays.

Patrick Turner.

maley2711 profile image
maley2711 in reply to Patrick-Turner

IMHO, you are your brain,,evrything else is just brain support> Brain transplant or computer chip...you would not be you, so what would be the point? Not interested in myw ife with a brain transplant!!

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to maley2711

Well all I set out to do in answering your very good question, is to highlight the accompanying existential issues that surround any questioning for cures of our human condition which we just don't like right now. I had a wife for only 18 months, and her mental acceptance of marriage changed to be an uncontrolled hatred of marriage, me, her mother, Canberra, and her work, cats, pot plants and out house. Her psychologist she was seeing could not stop her complete change of mind happening. So one day she fully liberated herself by vanishing on 11pm plane to Perth, about 4,000km across Australia. I sometimes wonder why there is no cure for wives we love who change their minds. But I never married again. I may have found a lady with artificial brain to be far "better" than one with a female brain. If the artificial brain was indistinguishable from an organic natural brain, why would any man's love for such a dame ever fade? It would be difficult to get a transplanted brain for your wife if she wanted one. But what if the new brain had all memories of the past deleted, and all your wife's consciousness "uploaded" then you'd have a re-juvanated wife that was your wife, and in the same old body. I am thinking very absurdly here, exploring ridiculous possibilities that could only occupy an old man's brain, with a short future. Young ppl are so occupied with the greatness of youth that their "What Ifs" are completely different to mine. In future, I see little reason why someone's complete consciousness might not be downloaded to a 500 gigabyte hard drive, and installed to a suitable PC, so that you could talk to the down loaded person. Maybe you'd find that person was not happy because they didn't have a body,

and could not walk outside and sit in the sunshine with a cat on their lap. But if a suitable robotic body could be made, and I suggest that is not so distant in time, then you could have your wife and all your old memories, and you might find its better than being alone.

But the cost of all this could be huge, and prohibitive, but in 100 years at present rate of technical innovation, a re-constructed person might seem better than the original who could not be kept alive despite huge betterment of cures for 101 ailments that affect humans as they age. The thing is that your consciousness probably could not be transferred to a cyborg, or robot, or woteva, so that after the transfer, you'd wake up to find you are not quite yourself any more. How would I accept the offer of transferred consciousness without the fear of having to die?

I had a nice bicycle ride today.

I did 85km. I began at 7:15am, and after about 55km it was maybe 30C, ( 86F ) and during an uphill part my heart fibrillated, so I stopped for a drink of water and heart calmed down and I finished the ride. I've got to an age where such dysfunctions can happen even though I am classified as super fit. But was that caused by age?, was it because of blood pressure pills? Was it because of long term use of Xtandi even when its not now doing anything its supposed to do, ie, keep Psa low and slow down Pca progress. Is it because of heat? or long term ADT? Worse things happened on hot days while I was on Zytiga.

Doctors are clueless about such things. By the time I got to my favorite cafe for a good lunch it was 38C, (100F),

I see a local doc tomorrow, and ask him to refer me to a heart specialist at hospital to review the management of my blood pressure and maybe change the pills I've been on for a few weeks. At times like this, I would not mind being a robot equipped with my brain. But supplying a human brain within a robot with blood and oxygen and a large number of other chemicals would be a real challenge. If we get to live forever, we would have to not be ourselves, IMHO. There have been a few science fiction dramas which address the problems of existence with robots that display our human attributes and look just like us, and able to be purchased at Walmart for $3,000.00.

Patrick Turner.

maley2711 profile image
maley2711 in reply to Patrick-Turner

unlikely, but if I ever make it to beautiful Canberra, I will do my best to have a cold one with you.....enjoy your philosophizing !! I'm sorry about that former wife...VERY strange....I do think women are more willing to abandon marriage than are men..at least faithful-type men!! Of course, most folks would hear your story and ask " What the hell did Patrick do to cause her to do that"...over 29 years, I've also been threatened a few times..later she is all lovey dovey? lubby dubby? Then again, my sister is still with a guy(but no longer married to him) who was unfaithful more than once, and who also gifted her with lifetime herpes. Later in life . he has returned to his Catholicism...in hopes of being absolved I assume? what a world!

kudos on your exercise diligence Patrick...maybe why you are beating this disease so far? well, at least I did a 50 minute walk today...now to shed 20LB +??? fat chance...chuckle.

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to maley2711

My life long diaries have grown to a pile of 46 exercize books and just what happened before and after getting involved with a woman is recorded. I used to invite women to contribute, to have their say, but few ever did. I dated a total of 13 women for 3 months of longer to enjoy them, and they enjoyed me, and to explore a possibility of something longer lasting. 2 lasted 3 years, but I only married 1. Not one complained about the bedroom performance or how I treated them and there was no cheating.But what sabotaged most relationships was the women's desire to travel, or just not settle down, and some were so uneducated there was not enough to talk about. None rode a bicycle. Some became empowered and so confident after time with me that they thought they could score any (better) man if they tried, That often failed, but pride stopped them returning. Could I trust them in future? Time passed, opportunities vanished, and I never earned enough to maintain a woman and her kids from a previous marriage. The women of 35 - 45 who had not had kids were often crazy, they just did not get what they had to do to get both us us to be happy.

I was a building contractor who needed to earn a reputation and stay settled down in a house so I bought a house and did just that, and I didn't want to travel, and didn't have the money because I paid off a house loan. I was very square, law abiding, very communicative, able to foresee problems at work and solve them, and manage contracts and work hard. That was so opposite of what I found in whatever women I did find who were "available", ie, not with some other bloke, and not going out with two others in the same week. I had to wade through a social swamp full of wayward tarts, all good for nothing. When my ex wife told me she was going to leave, I said "I knew" and she looked surprised, so I handed her my diary where I talked to a male friend about her and we both thought it certain she wasn't going to last much longer in Canberra, and after she read my real thoughts, she hissed like a snake at me " So you DID know I would leave. "Yes, it looked obvious to me." End of discussion. She really wanted to wound me with bad news, but it was no big deal afaiwc. It was a free country, I thought, and she was always free to leave me, there was no need to be nasty about it. That was all it took to make me very wary about all women.

Oscar Wilde once said, "A man can lose a lot of money on a woman; but he can lose a lot more on a horse". I was never a problem gambler. I could only reliably bet upon myself.

That means I have to do the maintenance work on my bicycles, and I don't mind the house work.

Escudilla profile image
Escudilla in reply to Patrick-Turner

You're an interesting dude Patrick.

I wanna ride, but it's windy and cold and snowing here on the mountain. Oh well, I'll get on that trainer today. Back to the desert on Friday though, for another stretch of the Arizona Trail! I can give up sex, but if I have to give up riding, I'll probably consider myself done. My partner of 40 years doesn't need sex anymore either. Damn, we had fun for 37 years though. Now I'm treatment diminished, with only biking and grandbabies to sustain me. I need those biking endorphins!

Escudilla profile image
Escudilla in reply to Escudilla

Hey Patrick. Do you Strava?

depotdoug profile image
depotdoug in reply to Escudilla

Endorphins are my friend too. Bring on exercising mine is an inside job right now. Planet Fitness Love fast Eliptical, Stairmaster plus.

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to Escudilla

Its hot here now, 38C yesterday, but I did 85km. 37C today, a rest day, so no shortage of endorphins and I don't seem to need Testosterone. I'll soon see if a man can keep cycling when having treatment with Ra223.

I will be **done** at some time, just don't know when.

MateoBeach profile image
MateoBeach in reply to Patrick-Turner

How about a bike riding robot to be controlled by your brain home in bed but 5G VR to you home at rest? Or on a VR trainer going at your capacity while the robot kicked everybody I’m a**. No, better yet, you can get an excellent pedal-assist ebike to accomplish the same with whatever assist level you choose and your brain and senses actually along to enjoy the ride. Turbo level anyone? May soon to be available at Walmart for $3,000. But right now for about twice that for top of the line. No shame!

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to MateoBeach

You are so imaginative! Its showing good mental health, That Swedish TV series called 'Being Human' did show me what life will be like with "hubots" in our world, where they begin as our slaves, because the one thing all of us don't have but do want is a slave or servant to clean up after us, do the washing, cook dinner, go shopping and do our tax returns etc, etc, etc. Remember when Wymmin's Liberation Movemynt decided it was fair and reasonable that "all wymmin could have it ALL"?

Go for it baby, said all the blokes. OK, then the Fems find there are only 24 hours in a day and if they wanted 96 hours, then they'd hafta pay for the extra 72 hours, but they'd agreed about equal pay with men, and they found out multitasking was a myth because only on thing could be done right in a given amount of time....... oh how the best laid ideas develop cracks and fall apart........

Many at my age are getting E-bikes to satisfy their appetite for cycling 200km a week. But I don't need the motor bike yet. And I often overtake ppl on E-bikes.

One asked me, after I stopped at traffic lights and he caught up, "How are yer goin?"

I replied, "very well, I just overtook you". He didn't bother trying to keep up with me after that.

And I was just a poxed up old man who'd been castrated for many years.......

Patrick Turner.

GoBucks profile image
GoBucks in reply to Patrick-Turner

Have you watched the series Upload on Amazon Prime?

noirhole profile image
noirhole in reply to GoBucks

I am a 1982 graduate of The Ohio State University which at the time had no "The" associated with the name. BSLA graduate with 31 years of service as a Landscape Architect with the US Forest Service and National Park Service.

GoBucks profile image
GoBucks in reply to noirhole

Nice. As always, Go Bucks!

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to GoBucks

I'm hopelessly uncool. Why would I ever watch something called "Upload"?I have no idea at all about what Amazon Prime is.

I love having a laptop, so we can type these these very cheap telegrams to each other.

I can write about my craft work and it saves me the trouble of paying for a book to be published. I worked out I did not need or want a mobile phone, Farce Puke, or Twatter.

I should update my webpage about Pca soon.

Patrick Turner.

GoBucks profile image
GoBucks in reply to Patrick-Turner

Not uncool at all. I asked because your idea was "stolen". A show was created where your life is put on disk and "uploaded" to the place you choose and well, there you are. Probably many great ideas arise out on the bike rides. Keep riding and stay safe.

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to GoBucks

Well, ya got me there, I did not my idea was "stolen". Who stole it? Its all a bit much for me to figure out. But I did have a good 53km bike ride this am; the world looks good at 6:30 am in summer. There's a good cafe open at 7:30 across town, a shot of caffeine goes a long way to urge my subconscious into considering both very good and very daft ideas and have me conclude that when I die, I'll be very dumb, unlike so many younger ppl who insist they know everything.

It was a very good cycle ride, and spending an hour to re-adjust the gear cables to get them to work better made my ride close to a perfect experience, where I wanted nothing else than to just ride a bit.

Patrick Turner.

TFBUNDY profile image
TFBUNDY in reply to Patrick-Turner

Bloody hell Patrick....

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to TFBUNDY

I don't believe Hell exists, the brainwashing for 11years at Catholic schools by nuns and Christian Bros just didn't work. But nearly all tribes during past thousands of years of history around the world imagined gods, demons, hell, souls, spirits, heaven existed somewhere, and I was immensely lucky to not be tied to a post and burned alive to remind all ppl around that fake news and info was the truth.

Bluddee 'Ell indeed, forgive me being uncool, and not the slightest bit interested in so many other pursuits by other humans, unless they are a comin' after me.

I'd offer you a nice beer if you were here. I try not to upset anyone by how I see the world, although I enjoy discussions about Sex, Politics, Religion, Existence, Infinity, Eternity, Doctors, Pca treatments, Side Effects, but so many find all that a huge puzzle, and I understand their wish to love who they know, and make sure their kids and grand kids do OK in future. Pardon me please for not quite getting around to having any kids, but at least that means your kids don't have to compete with mine to buy a dwindling amount of land, Earth resources.

Patrick Turner.

TFBUNDY profile image
TFBUNDY in reply to Patrick-Turner

Steady on Old Chap. I had no idea you had married my ex wife.... A couple of cold ones sounds like a plan... Cheers m8

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to TFBUNDY

Now ya tell me. She said she'd been married to Count Von Longenkok of Bavaria. When I think about it all, I know I quite prefer 2 hours riding a bicycle than trying to ride a sheela.

Patrick Turner.

TFBUNDY profile image
TFBUNDY in reply to Patrick-Turner

Well there we must disagree. The roads here are too dangerous and I hate to be overtaken. And my bits are still functional if regrettably not up to past glories...

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to TFBUNDY

If you commit to travelling 10,000km per year by bicycle, then for most ppl its impossible to proceed to actually cycle 10,000km a year, for the reasons you give.I grew up in Sydney where the traffic became so nightmarish that when a construction company I worked for in 1973 offered me a transfer to Canberra, I gladly accepted it. C was a small country town of 170,000, but I got a spare extra 2 hours a day because I was not stuck in traffic on a BMW R/75 motorcycle.

But after some years I settled down in C and got married, got unmarried, and didn't get re-married, so a congested life caused by sheelas didn't happen.

The planners of C began to build off-road shared paths for walkers, runners, cyclists and that continues as C grows, and its now about 440,000ppl, and it would be difficult for me to get killed on a bike even if I tried, and besides, roads are real good in C and have cycle lanes as well. Laws protect us cyclists.

My working parts are also not what they used to be, but I often overtake blokes 1/2 my age. I enjoy seeing a fully fit 30yo glide past me in the full race position while he makes 100% more leg power than I do, and is doing 40kph, while I manage only 25kph. Will he be going good at 73yo? One wonders. So my success at being human is to never be so stupid as to be bitter about not being what I was years ago. I'm gettin' along just fine IMHO.

C is the National Capital Territory of Australia so its a bit like Washington, the home for our National Government. At first, most ordinary ppl hated to come here as it didn't have things a big city has, but Govt encouraged ppl with a well planned city, and cheap big blocks of land to build a house with nice roads. Many thought my town C was the Most Boring Place on Earth, but no, I didn't think so, and I found those winging the most were boring, not our nice little city.

You might know than some ppl sustain themselves happily from their inner strengths, while others cannot, and expect grander things outside themselves to surround them. By 30, a penny dropped about being happy to be here rather than anywhere else,

while I watched so many never be happy, always moving house, job, spending big on junk, and unable to focus and stay, and have a simple life like so many others, maybe a bit like me.

I am due to talk to the doc who will give me Ra223 very soon. I don't know how well that might work, but its worth a try, and it would be stupid to be entirely negative about it. None of us should have to come to reliance on nuclear ionizing radiation to live a bit longer, but there is not a big selection of alternatives for me at present.

Something else might turn up in time to help us in future. That's a legitimate hope.

Patrick Turner.

TFBUNDY profile image
TFBUNDY in reply to Patrick-Turner

Canberra sounds great to me. I still have my ZX12-R Japanese death rocket, but speed cameras have taken the edge of that in UK and France. So Sheelas moved to the top of the list. Well, one Sheela anyway. My wife is 30 years younger than me and my daughter is 4 so I have an interest in hanging on to the mortal coils. I need another 30 years. I'm a dabbler - LDN, zinc, quercetin, Doxycycline D3, and various other stuff post HIFU. So far so good, and keeping far away from ADT. Good luck with your 223. Actually I am a follower of Tom Seyfried metabolic theories, and I guess you are lean and mean. Have you tried to sustain on keto diet? I dropped from 82kg to 68kg super fast with starvation and keto before HIFU and I attribute that to a 50% PSA drop and possibly to success of HIFU. Looked like I needed ironing afterwards, and I have sneaked back to 75kg since. Keep on riding the mount of your choice. Cheers

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to TFBUNDY

It looks like your Rodger the Rocket Man must be ready to go for a long time yet.I heard about Keto, and it works, but it needs super will power almost nobody has.

But when I decided to eat less and go back to cycling in 2006, I stuck to the decision easily, and I lost 20Kg in 6 months. No more man boobs.

I met a few Filipino ladies who had married a 55yo bloke when they were 22, and they quickly had 2-3 kids. But I was 50 when I met these ladies when they were 48, and husband had died years before, and kids were quite feral, and ladies struggled on alone. I could not afford to get involved. But I had found at 30 that I could never expect loyalty from any one else 30, let alone a young lady of say 22. Experts said women mature better, faster than men, but I saw no evidence of that. Most were far more crazy that I was, but at least I held down a good job, maintained high respect to and from my superiors, and I built serious buildings. But at home there was nothing.

In Nov 2019 I had part of small intestine adhere to scar tissue if failed RP in 2010.

So small intestine stopped working.

I spent real horrible 11 days in hospital and an op was done to cut intestine free from wall of stomach. Doc said I had no fat inside me and that all things looked real good.

But my weight dropped 8Kg in 11 days, from 83kg to 75Kg. I could not sit on a hard chair or in bath - I lost lot of muscle and fat.

Psa was low then while Xtandi worked after 4 doses Lu177 that year. But Pca zoomed up by July 2020. and the weight loss had no discernible effect on what my Pca wanted to do. So I don't believe change of weight or rapid weight loss does anything to stop Pca. Men like to think they are doing something to beat Pca, but don't realize Pca is a disease that is beyond their control.

Anyway, I'm now 78Kg, and have put on lost muscle so I cycle very well with good average speeds which show I am not weighed down by so much fat, something that all the fast young men just don't have - yet.

Good luck with how you go.....

Patrick Turner.

TFBUNDY profile image
TFBUNDY in reply to Patrick-Turner

Well Roger is fueled by over 20 English testosterones, or 600 plus of those tiny American ones. Testosterone is not the whole story but I think I would shrivel at every level without it. I value my aggression, strangely enough. I think ADT is a dead end. Literally. Please research a different path, guys...

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to TFBUNDY

My aggression was tamed well before I was 30 and I became assertive, but I can see that you have a desire to remain a Hot Rooster, because you have a young wife, and becoming a Feather Duster just won't suit either of you. I was 62 in 2009 at diagnosis with inoperable Gleason 9, Psa only 6, and T = 20, and I was extremely fit and able to do everything. But I'd quit fooling myself that I'd ever get married again by about 35. I was good looking and treated dames well, but that all didn't seem to matter. By 62, I had virtually no chance of ever being touched by a woman again, except the angel nurses at hospitals, so when docs tried EBRT and 2 years of ADT, it was very acceptable. But then when I stopped ADT to see if the EBRT + ADT had worked, Psa went up x 100 in 6 months from 0.08 to 8.0, and I'd have died if I had not done something, and at that time in 2013, there was not much I could do, just chemo.

So I re-started ADT and have stayed on it ever since. T is very low.

Afaik, there are not any men of 73 who could keep up with me on one of my typical 70km cycle rides. I can be rude and obnoxious to motorists who put my life in danger by not obeying road laws. That's my time for aggression.

ADT continued to kick the can down the road until 2016 when it stopped working, so I went on Cosadex, and had more IMRT to PG, but that lasted 6 months, so then I had Zytiga, and can went 8 more months down road, and scans showed steady increase in number and size, so I had chemo, a failure, then 6 doses LU177 and Psa went from 25 to 0.32, and now is 60, but at least Lu177 killed my soft tissue mets leaving only bone mets so next thing is Ra223.

Much of this therapy just was not around when I was diagnosed, and chemo for Pca was regarded as palliative care because it always failed. Maybe it still does.

Now you want us to research a different path for you, but we can only share our experiences; you must do the research about what might work as we have had to about our own situations which have varied because Pca varies in how it kills men.

If I were you, and if you had a high Psa and many mets, I'd try to go straight to Lu177 with dithering around. You would need to have PsMa Ga68 PET + CT scan plus FDG PT scan to tell you and your doctors what they need to know about your Pca.

You could have ADT for say 1 month before start of Lu177, and for following 6 months to slow down Pca growth during first 4 doses Lu177. Slowing down Pca growth may improve outcome of Lu177 because without ADT, the Pca could keep growing back after each dose of Lu177 that is usually 6 to 8 weeks apart, and most of what each dose does is within a month of having the dose.

But even though effect of Lu177 seems magical if you happen to get a good response from it, the mean time for holding down Pca for all men is only about 14 months.

I got 2 years, with 6 doses. I have no idea if Xtandi is still working, so T might be high, but recent T tests showed no T, because after so much ADT for so long, my balls have permanently shut down, and if I stopped all ADT now I probably would not have T return like it did in 2012 when I paused ADT.

Pca is well known for mutating to be able to make its own supply of T in the form of more powerful di-hydro-testosterone. I have now taken all the known drugs which block or interfere with that process.

I just have a lot of small but very stubborn bone mets now, so hence my choice to get Ra223, which works to replace calcium where there is high calcium traffic at bone lesions. If I had high number of soft tissue mets, the Ra223 would not help me.

I am lucky to have an oncologist at a local public Canberra Hospital who is happy to refer me to get whatever new treatment comes along and which is not done for free under our Australian Medicare at local hospital. Lu177 is not free and cost of that plus 10 PsMa scans so far has been usd $40,000. Ya gotta spend $$$ just to stay alive a bit longer. I might need 6 doses Ra223 and last time I saw a price it was about usd $10,100 per dose, no Medicare rebate, because all these new fangled treatments have not yet been fully approved, or just not added to the ever growing mountain of hugely expensive cancer drugs, many of which may not work for you, so its a gamble to do anything. I have seen a man die whose response to all known things was so bad he died at under 60 in less than 3 years after diagnosis. Nice man, beautiful wife 50, two lovely kids. A disaster for them.

There is also Provenge, but its mean extension to life is 4months, although one man said to me in email to me he got 9 years, so he must have got Provenge in a trial or just after it was invented. Last cost I saw was usd $150,000. Its not here in Australia afaik.

Maybe you think you are the man they can't root, shoot, or electrocute, and someone told me 50 years ago that's what I was :-) But Pca knows very well how to kill a man, and to insult all the doctors, and to mock all those brandishing alternative treatments.

Patrick Turner.

TFBUNDY profile image
TFBUNDY in reply to Patrick-Turner

Yep. I watched my father take his first goserelin shot, and his last morphine syringe 5 years later. I see the writing on the wall. I can only try to outrun the train as best as I can, but we're all trapped between the rails.

dhccpa profile image
dhccpa

Great question!

Northcaptain profile image
Northcaptain

The fact that there is no gamechanger going forward is true for all type of cancer and the root cause of the problems seems to be lying in the foundation of the understanding of both the cancer itself and the metastasis that follows. During the holidays I've read Dr Thomas Seyfreid anthem about "cancer as a metabolic disease" where he goes in great lengths about the failure of the current approach and the call to a broader perspective. But while a few practitioners are starting to implement his approach, there is the need for a lot of research in this new field. Very interesting to watch.youtube.com/watch?v=06e-Pwh...

Northcaptain profile image
Northcaptain in reply to Northcaptain

And i should add, this is the first time that we have a "experimental demonstrable" theory on the origin of metastasis. Altough 95 % of the funding is at the pursuit of a genetic cause to cancer and metastasis, Dr Seyfried has proved that a cancerous cell embrio when transplanted to a "healthy cell" will not transmits the cancer to the cell = thus defeating completely the current thought of genetic defect being the cause of the cancer. So they all got it WRONG from the start and we are paying the price today and for years to come, until some funds are devoted to the metabolic cause of cancer... but do pharmaceutical really want to cure once and for all or to offer a $/month pill life support ?

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to Northcaptain

Yes, maybe.But when Pca cell first forms because of DNA mistake, it is surrounded by healthy cells, and Pca grows until it divides to make more Pca cells and they invent ways to invade and kill other healthy cells. All or part of original Pca cell dies and is absorbed by body, and methinks that regardless of any metabolic goings on in a person, the cancer keeps finding ways to invade healthy cells create its own blood supply, and avoid all effects of treatments.

My mum lived to 98, and died from old age, and never got life threatening cancers. Its probable that many cancers tried to live on in her body after they evolved, but her immune system was remarkably good, wheras mine is quite defective, like my fathers' and that of my 2 sisters, and 1/2 of the rest of the world. So just why is it that some get cancer and others never will?

Patrick Turner.

Northcaptain profile image
Northcaptain in reply to Patrick-Turner

Patrick the fact that Pca form because of DNA mistake is the ancient belief. Today the new wave of thinking is that all cancer (including Pca) forms because of cellular respiration disease. Then this cellular respiration induce mutagenic damage to the DNA. Its a very important turnaround because we all got it wrong and nobody yet is capable of treating this disease after 50 years of "war against the cancer". And still there is no standing hypothesis for the creation of metastase. If you have some time and want to indulge yourself in that new approach of thinking i would recommend the following books:

amazon.com/Cancer-Metabolic... (1300 pages of avid reading)

chelseagreen.com/product/tr...

cheers

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to Northcaptain

Well, I just don't know enough to doubt you or agree with you, but from what you know, how should we treat Pca? I most probably had Pca begin maybe in 2004. Psa < 3.

By the time my Psa went to 5, in 2009, docs said it was time to examine me, the Pca had grown well to a Gleason 9, 9/9 positive biopsy samples, and enclosed PG so that when docs went in for RP, they could not remove PG. But they found no spread after taking many more biopsy samples.

It seems obvious I was diagnosed about 5 years Too Late, and full examination at Psa = 3.0 might have been better. I'd had regular yearly Psa tests, and expected to get Pca because I saw how many other ppl around me died from cancers.

Just what on earth should have been done, according to your ideas?

Patrick Turner.

Northcaptain profile image
Northcaptain in reply to Patrick-Turner

Patrick I have no idea .. I’m just an avid reader and investigator on my own. The only think I know from my own experience is that I have had my PSA pre RP to go fro 3 to 17 in 3 years...then I went into 3 day monthly dry fast (no water) and for a complete year my PSA was stuck at 17 puzzling completely my oncologist preparing me for the RP. He had never seen this. Now post RP I’m riding in the 0.12 range I know there are 2.5 exponent7 sick cells circulating in my body and my full time thinking is to convert them to the bushido honor code and commit them to suicide (apoptosis). This new thinking about “cancer as a metabolic disease” is just in its infancy. Research is needed but knowing the difficulty of the cancer cell with the Warburg effect (common to all type of cancer) if research is applied to this, surely some solutions could happen in the following years. I will be doing test on myself on the push/pull approach developed by D’Agostino and try to have my PSA to retreat somewhat. At least it gives me the impression of trying to do something so it’s occupational also LOL

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to Northcaptain

Ah, so you have "2.5 exponent7 sick cells circulating in my body" and you are not going to be happy unless they make "bushito" exit asap. Let us hope suicide becomes very popular among Pca cells, but I feel that my Pca cells live in a kind of tortured daze of uncontrolled growth, and they know there's no hope of eternal life, and they would rather I commit suicide than they do it, but they know that would be their end, and their celebratory days, weeks, months of outwitting doctors and a cunning Pca patient would be over. Its the well sculptured lose-lose situation that does not suit Pca's grandiose ego. I am sure that having ZERO to eat or drink for 3 days each month probably would not harm me much, but how many can prove they practiced that idea, and then find the PsMa scans indicated mets got smaller?

Wet fasting 2 days a week is a quite good idea though, especially for sedentary ppl who never burn up the calories they enjoy eating, which is why they get heavy, and maybe get diabetes. Water wetness would be fine, but not Coca Cola.

Try cycling 200km+ a week. Its very difficult to fast. But body plays tricks on mind and makes sure you get so hungry so you will eat enough, which you think is barely enough and body stores that as fat during time you are not cycling around and around to stay how you were at your best at 25.

But my 200km+ a week isn't much. The elite cyclists of say 30 who are good enough freaks to get into Tour De France can do the 3,500km in 21 days, and they do ride on two "rest days". Its about 6 times what I do and at twice the average speed. So whatever you do, you could ask "are you any good at doing it?" Would anything I do or not do stop my Pca? I doubt anything we do that we feel is good for us will cure Pca.

Patrick Turner.

Northcaptain profile image
Northcaptain in reply to Patrick-Turner

I have done a lot of cycling so i know where you stand ! The max i ever done was 150 km... But i'm not build for cycling, i output only 170 watts :) about two light bulb. I've quit cycling exactly for the reason that its a sport that demand to be constantly full of glycogen. Now i'm sailing :)

I've seen the Canadian cycling team practicing at 50+ km/hour where i could only stand 28 kmh for a few hours :) LOL

The 25 million cells is a rule of 3 formula that i have calculated with the weight of my prostate (50g) at dissection at 17 PSA, vs the number of cell in 50g of prostate given that 10 % would be cancerous and then the relation with the 0.12 PSA ... that yield 25 million cells remaining ... which would be less than 1cc on a injection. Terrible to think of this...

Wish you to be able to pedal for a long time !

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to Northcaptain

I once raced on bicycle at 17yo with Apia club in Sydney. I preferred that to playing football, but school and parents gave me no choice, I had to play Rugby Union, and I went home sore with injuries often. The bike racing was pure, clean, and there was speed. But then came learning to be a builder, night classes to get a Building Certificate, and often 6 days a week of work.

I was good at saving money, and I had a series of motorcycles, cheaper to run than a car.

But at 37yo, I had house loan paid off and time to spare, and had my own business.

I joined a local Canberra Cycling Club as a "veteran" and I raced regularly for 6 years, and sometimes I managed 300km in one day. My peak was at about 42, able to make 220W and I didn't go as fast as others in the club my age because they had much more natural ability than I did. There were others just like me, and riding with these others to get there first increases the good effects of the exercise.

But my knees went bad, so I quit for 12 years until a good doc trimmed my knee cartilages so I got back on bike. At 61, I estimated I could make 170W.

It was better than 95% of my town's population. Now I can make maybe 150W at 73, but who cares about the darn watts?

The elite cyclists can go 50kph+ average speed in a time trial. These are all well trained young freaks. Comparing yourself to them is pointless. Accept who and what you are. If I was 80yo, and I managed 40km in 2 hours, I'd be going real well. Who cares if man of 40yo can do the 40km in 1 hour?

Patrick Turner.

Northcaptain profile image
Northcaptain in reply to Patrick-Turner

With 3 month of summer here in Eastern Canada and 9 months of winter (or so) someone has to choose very carefully it’s occupational sport. I choose sailing so I can evade the winter. You would be sad here stuck inside for several months. Today is a good day for February only -12C but I’ve seen -37C that was in the 80s. Global warming is changing all that.

You are very proficient at cycling it’s so good it can help you through this journey!

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to Northcaptain

I would not want to be kept inside by the weather. My swimming pool used to freeze over with a little ice in 1980s but that has not happened for over 20 years now. I can cycle all year round.

Patrick Turner.

Northcaptain profile image
Northcaptain in reply to Patrick-Turner

Hey Patrick... there is snow all over the place here :)

Some reading for real promises:mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/5/147...

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to Northcaptain

That link takes me to where keto is discussed, and I won't read a word, because over past years I have seen it all before and concluded that a keto diet or any other severe kind of diet to reduce blood glucose levels won't cure my Pca because its very slow growing, and needs only a tiny amount of glucose to grow very well. Patrick Turner.

Northcaptain profile image
Northcaptain in reply to Patrick-Turner

It’s not about glucose... it’s about ketones body generated by the liver and having an epigenetic effect on all the body. And turning down the cancer cell because the ketones are not good for them ! The value lies in a better understanding of what could ultimately cure cancer because they readily achieved it in mice... and now we are beginning to see more and more studies using humans. Great !

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to Northcaptain

Yes, but previous encounters with a bloke of about 30 who was about 30Kg overweight, and who tried the keto diet said to me it was the only thing that worked for him to get his weight from nearly obese to BMI below 25. The key was to never eat carbohydrates, and push one's body into a state of ketosis. So lowering blood glucose was essential. To me, that just looks like the Atkins diet high in protein with allowable fats, so your body tries get its energy the hard way, where a body is forced to break down fats and protein to make blood glucose. We have evolved to be omnivorous and we got by well in an environment which was not stuffed right up by too many humans, land clearing, farming etc, and we hunted and gathered. We learnt to cook the carbs and meat we found and hunted to make them much easier to digest. But you can bet many ppl had appalling bad diets where every other week the food was scarce. The weak who would not hunt while feeling hungry died early. A few million years of evolution made us a hardy species, but all of us were utterly ignorant about any kind of body chemistry. Homo Sapiens was more like Homo Dumb Brain.

Its very hard to put a body into ketosis state and keep it there, and one might claim that state of chemistry causes Pca to just die but afaiac, its far from proven to be true. I was told in 2009 at diagnosis I had "aggressive young man's" type of Pca which would have killed me years ago were it not for ADT, and a number of drugs to help ADT work plus Lu177, which did actually kill a lot of Pca cells. I believe no amount of keto dieting would have done anything better than treatment I have had so far.

Those who did say they believe it worked had very weak Pca, ie, non aggressive, easily zapped by ADT, and almost benign form of Pca.

Nobody has yet proven to me or any other group I have been in that keto dieting should be done asap, and all info about it needs to be proven to be true, and conditions positive outcome defined, as well as cases of where keto dieting just won't work at all. This is vital info, and it requires a serious trial to be done properly, not just a bit of anecdotal success stories by a few ppl who felt keto helped them stop Pca. We can all feel what we feel is truth, but to know real truth, a lot of facts must be weighed up scientifically; this is thinking, not feeling.

I didn't go cycling for 3 months in winter in 2019 because I'd hurt something in my hip doing building work. The lack of activity meant reducing carbs to near zero but eating plenty green vegies and lean protein and that stopped weight gain. My hip healed up.

But then I got an adhesion of small intestine to scar tissue of failed RP in 2010.

I spent 11 days in hospital and lost 8kg, and all my gut biota went down the toilet, along with by-products of decomposition of my body fat and muscles. A lot became CO2 I breathed out. Was I ketonic? Probably, but there was ZERO effect on Pca.

It took a week or two to regain some strength, but in the last 13 months I've regained more muscle than fat, and I still eat less than most other ppl I know.

And I am back to cycling 200km per week. Psa is 60, a terrible worry, but arrangements have been made to give me Ra223, and I won't be expecting any miracles from keto diet. Scans show all my Pca is in bones, so Ra223 has a chance it might work to grant me more years alive than any other thing.

I have not spoken to the 30yo man I met who said keto worked for him. Maybe he got sick and tired of it all, and like 90% of ppl to try a diet, find they just can't do it any more, and before very long, they are heavier than when they began their diet, and their mind has snapped backwards into the depression and allergy to exercise.

I did a very nice 77km on bike this am. I went nicely fast, no pains.

It was a cool day, and it rained after lunch, while I worked on a bike in shed. What a simply glorious day of life that I had today!

Nature is indeed kind.

Patrick Turner.

Northcaptain profile image
Northcaptain in reply to Patrick-Turner

Good morning mate, the article that i sent to you is exactly about the synergistic action of ketones + either chimio or radio. Ok the diet is to trigger the ketosis, but its the way they did their clinical test. I'm in clinical ketosis since January 4th and its not hard at all, to the contrary i feel so well that i will never go back to burning (only)dirty glucose ! I sincerely wish that the RA-223 treatment will provide some good !

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to Northcaptain

Pardon my scepticism on ketosis.At the moment I am in deep shit with my Pca, Pa 60, and rising fast, with a pile of hard to treat bone mets.

I just spoke to doc who can begin Ra223 if I insist, and he says it can wreck my bone marrow and gives only 4 months, so he's now writing email to my oncologist to warn him of danger, because my onco has very few patients who progress to Ra223.

Those who have favoured ketosis do not seem to have had the really bad metastatic Pca I have had since 2017.

I am closer to death than I thought. If I do have Ra223, which is 6 treatments, I possibly could get exceptional good response, but then find I could not have anything at all afterwards.

Burning dirty carbs is how your body stays alive. Glucose in blood is a sugar which is a carbohydrate.

I need to talk to other ppl who have had Ra223, if any have lived to say what happened.

Patrick Turner.

Northcaptain profile image
Northcaptain in reply to Patrick-Turner

I’m deeply saddened by your situation... ra223 seems to be a catch 22. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

You’re belief about burning dirty carb as the only way a human body survive is not true. If it was, nobody could fast more than 24 hours. Not sure if you know but top athletes now perform on ketone. You should read on the subject. It’s not sorcery it’s proved science today.

What the recent research has determined is that it’s never too late in a treatment plan to get on ketosis. No harm can be done. It’s a protective state for your whole body. I won’t say more but if you dare to experiment pm me I could be of help.

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to Northcaptain

I recall the days of 1987 when I discovered the Nathan Pritikin diet, and dear old Nat said the third world poor ppl always had a lo cal diet so they all remained active and thin and didn't get many diseases of rich western world ppl, and the contrast between a typical bloke living the American Dream and a bloke hoeing rich a paddy in Indonesia could not be starker, so he analyzed the mountain of crap eaten by Americans and compared it to the frugal diet of the Indonesians, and told us all what us in the West were doing with poisonous eating habits, then concluded to tell us we don't need 2,400 cals a day from shitty surgary foods, but should eat 1,800cals and get these from 80% whole grains slow to digest and clean burning, 10% fats or oils ,and 10% protein. He tried to be a keen sports person but ppl laughed when he died at 72 from leukemia. At that time, the Atkins diet was a great way for ppl to lose weight by deriving calories from fat burning and protein burning, something our bodies don't like doing much. Many endurance athletes agreed with Nat, and to be good at running a marathon, nobody can win with a high fat%, and we see those Kenyans winning as they seem to dance along for 42km, and they ain't much slower than me on a bicycle. You are perfectly allowed to believe in ketosis being good if you wish to defeat Pca, or help the chemo or nuclide or RT or ADT treatment work better, but there are limits to what athletes can do on a keto diet, and in TDF, the average race distance at 40kph is about 170km, and the energy generated is from big servings of pasta each night,

As you should know, a bowl of pasta makes a cyclist ride fasta and fasta :-)

At 73, I only want to do an average 28km per day at about 23kph average, and without cycling up huge mountains in European Alps.

I was in hospital for 11 days in Nov 2019 because of scar tissue adhesions between small intestine and stomach wall of failed RP in 2010. I could not eat anything, and they had me on an IV drip for fluids, with a nose pipe going down to stomach, and I vomited often and passed a dark green liquid through nose which later became black and then clear as all my internal gastrinal bacteria died, and went out of my body;

I lost 11 Kg. Apart from feeling real bad for whole time, and after having op to sever adhesions, and slowly start up my guts again, I lost 8 Kg, lots of fat and muscle, as body decided to sustain itself by digesting itself. It is of course unsustainable.

But I was lucky no Pca mets were found anywhere at the doc looked around inside to check me out. Was I ketonic at the time? Maybe, and maybe in some other state beyond ketonic, but afaik, there was zero change to my Pca at the time. My body broke itself down to provide energy to stay alive so all parts of body got what it needed from my bloodstream, and methinks my Pca had a very happy time during such a vexatious unwanted condition of complete fast and intestinal shut-down. Anyway, a very long time ago, many mammals evolved to derive energy from carbs.

I know about not eating the wrong sort of food found in abundance in every supermarket. If all ppl were like me, the food industry would collapse, and spare space in supermarkets could be converted to recreation rooms where ppl were taught how to cook a carot, and how to cook long grain whole meal brown rice, and how to eat kale, etc, etc, etc.

I am not sure the state of ketosis is always protective for a whole body. For those wanting to stave off Pca spread, maybe it works. But what about those of us who get a really horrible Pca diagnosis with Gleason 9, inoperable and 95% chance of a lot of Pca spread? Does ketosis stop Pca spread? I doubt it. Its just too simplistic to think a single diet based idea would defeat all cancers in one way or another.

Patrick Turner.

Northcaptain profile image
Northcaptain in reply to Patrick-Turner

Sadly we are 20 years late on the subject of testing glucose/glutamine deprivation on cancer cell. After the sequencing of the human genome, all money (or so) for cancer went to therapy using the genetics. Today all get into a dead end, because they have found cancer with NO MUTATION and they have also found cancer with MULTIPLE unlinked mutation. So they are back to square 1, and we lost 20 years... The new metabolic approach is promising in lab on mice but it will take 5 years before we get some results. This won't prohibit me for trying.

Of course you were in full ketosis while you were losing so much weight in the hospital - but this was starvation not a diet. Since you're body was in full survival mode with lots of cortisol and glutamine available for fermentation fuel... your Pca was nourish by these. Its not the same thing as being on a diet without stress and having all the nutriments required but a lower glucose. This is wholly different.

But i never said the "metabolic approach" is a cure, neither nobody is saying that. What they are saying as that there is implication for new way of approching how to cure cancer. But then, cancer is one thing, metastasic disease is another one. Did you know that there is no current valid model for metastasis and almost no research on it ? Have you got some time to look at the video presentation by Dr Seyfried ?

Nobody can explain the experiment that Dr Seyfreid did, transplanting a cancerous cell embrio from one mouse to another (not sick) and the cancer is halted in the cell itself because its mitochondria are respiring not fermenting. They even manage to clone a completely healty mouse from cancerous cell.

The original post was : is there a new game changing treatment in the pipeline.

The sad thing is, when an hypothesis is wrong, anything you do thereafter (unless you're lucky) will be wrong also. This is what happen today and we are in the middle of it.

Good luck with Ra223..... prayers

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to Northcaptain

I feel you should pursue the possibility of curing Pca or other cancers by means of ketogenic diet if your consideration of known facts leads you to think there is some hope that keto method offers efficacy where all other things do not.It does appear Dr Seyfreid has made some remarkable claims. Pardon me for wanting others elsewhere in the world to get same extraordinary results to prove Dr Seyfried to be correct. The scientific world gains its best understanding of truth where someone makes claim that is published, and other scientists can repeat experiments and get same results. When the first claims were made that the Earth was not center of the Universe, and that we all lived on a tiny ball which went around the sun once a year, some of the claiments were punished severely by religious ppl who held political power and also theological control over ppl, in a world in about 1400 which was riddled with ignorance and pure unadulterated bullshit and had I lived in 1400, I would have been burned at a stake many times for saying / publishing many things I see as the truth now, had I tried to inform any other ppl.

There was huge reluctance of ppl to accept the truth of what Einstein published about space, mass, energy, speed of light, gravity, time and relativitybut we could not get space craft to zip around our solar system taking close up pictures of planets and their moons unless the scientists understand Einstein, and build computers to make the calculations to get rockets and space craft to go where wanted with inclusion of almost incomprehensible math equations that include for Einstein's relativity ideas.

Similarly, many in medical fields in the past hated being told they were wrong in how they treated ppl for all sorts ailments. When you had a number of scientists exploring some new concept of cancer treatment and they all get same results in trials, then truth emerges. The first trial of Lu177 in Australia was at Peter Mac in Melbourne in 2016. 31 men, mainly end stage cases with little lifetime left, and results agreed with trials elsewhere around the world. More trials followed.

Peter Mac doctors have published their findings using theranostic method based on PsMa Ga68 PT + CT scans and PsMa ligand chemical used with Lu177 which has been prepared for use in a nuclear reactor and given the wanted short half life needed for medical use. The new form of nuclide treatment became available as treatment well after I got diagnosed in 2009, and I lived long enough to get it, and although it did not do all the docs wanted, or that I wanted, it did give me 2 extra years of life, which is more that what many other things could give.

If keto is as good as you say it is, please prove it.

If you think its simple to get ketogenic diet to help kill Pca, then please publish a webpage to tell us what simple steps we all should adopt to put out bodies into state of ketosis. Most of us here just do not understand the mumbo jumbo scientific terminology made by any scientist anywhere, so if ppl read anything about Dr Seyfreid, they could be forgiven for concluding its all a pile of BS.

So, in your own words, in your own time, and preferably in less words than are in this post, please describe what a man has to do to stop his Pca.

Is that not a humble request?

Meanwhile, it was a very good cool summer morning here and I did 81km cycle ride at 24kph average, with first 26.3km at 26.9kph, equal to speeds I did when in good condition about 7 years ago in 2014. I'd been on ADT from mid 2010 to mid 2012, paused for 6 months to see if original ADT + EBRT had worked, and it had not, so went back onto ADT in 2013, but I was 66, pre-chemo, and was just as fast on bike as a pile of blokes in Sunday group who had full bottle of Testosterone.

It seems I have hardly lost any speed since 2014, and I cannot say I have any Pca symptoms, but docs still are not sure what to say I should do, ie, have more chemo or have Ra223, but my limited education about Pca treatments combined with personal experience of chemo and nuclide treatment looks certain to lead me to Ra223 because I feel it will do more for me than any kind of chemo. By "doing more", I mean the time it extends my life compared to doing nothing, and let Pca wreck my QOL in months and kill me in a year.

I am not against ketogenic diet. It does work to get weight down fast, and I met a man today at cafe who'd got weight down 20Kg but he's still got a big fat belly, and and is gaining weight, can't stay on keto diet, can't or won't exercise, and I saw no evidence he really understood what metastatic Pca is like, and how hard it is to kill.

Above you say "After the sequencing of the human genome, all money (or so) for cancer went to therapy using the genetics. Today all get into a dead end, because they have found cancer with NO MUTATION and they have also found cancer with MULTIPLE unlinked mutation. So they are back to square 1, and we lost 20 years... "

Really ? One man here, 47, got rare gall bladder cancer. He went to doc dealing with rare cancers and he had DNA examined, and came to conclusion that a drug given women's breast cancer should work, and sure enough it did, giving 5 remission. But this doc taught at Sydney Uni, and had access to students learning lab techniques to examine biopsy samples. I had my DNA examined last year to look for about 15 genes which indicate some cancers are likely, but there was nothing found to suggest PARP inhibitors might be good for me. A friend died last year after 10 doses Docetaxel where Psa went from 40 to 2, then back to 40, and he was then found to have Brca1+2 genes, so Pca mets flared up in liver, he got real sick, so missed out getting Lu177 months before and he died. So I see things being used against Pca which just don't work. So we end up with some getting a benefit with good science and some not.

Where are the numbers which indicate efficacy of keto diet against Pca?

We do know a lot about formation of mets and now have scans which can see at least some of them. We sure don't know all there is to be known about mets, but we could easily measure whether ketosis kits mets or not. For many ppl Docetaxel works to kill whatever they get. When taxane based chemo began, we didn't know much, but we were testing thousands of chemicals from nature or the lab to poison cancer cells more than they poisoned the rest of us, so much research is about whether a new medicine works or not, and what are side effects. It is not good science to condemn keto diet without finding out if a man with Pca can lower his Psa while dieting to produce ketosis.

We need the figures.

Patrick Turner.

Northcaptain profile image
Northcaptain in reply to Patrick-Turner

Hello Patrick, nobody is saying that the strict ketogenic diet is a cure. What the consensus says today through many peer review medical is that : Keto is safe for cancer patient even in advance metastatic disease. So keto can't hurt. What is also documented is that fasting or Keto prior to RT or chemo can have a synergistic effect on PCA. Not cure it. Dr Seyfreid and all the diet aware onco are asking for more R&D to be invested in the metabolic aspect of cancer to develop new way to target it base. Nobody said a cure. Sorry is i may have led you that impression, english is my second language and sometime i find it asleep in my mind.

And when i'm saying "keto" i'm not about feeding as the diet, i'm talking about the medical condition, proven by blood test that someone is burning ketones + glucose not just glucose. You don't need a keto diet to get into ketosis, but it helps (if it is strict).

There are currently 9059 search results on NCBI if someone search "ketogenic".

What i say is that : it cost nothing and there is no risk for health to enter into ketosis. Then if someone need chemo, radio, adt, it can help and there are indication by peer review and published articles that in vitro and in vivo in mice (and with human in certain type of cancer, that it could augment QoL or duration).

When you say: We sure don't know all there is to be known about mets, but we could easily measure whether ketosis kits mets or not.

In fact it this has already been proved on xenograft mice (mice with human cancer cell) What has been demonstrated is that you can revert cancer by curing the mitochondrial respiration - stopping the cell from fermenting, and getting back to normal OxPho. Ketosis has an effect and is recommended by Dr Seyfreid for brain and breast cancer together with conventional treatemen

So since its a no risk approach, that i can manage myself i'm following it. Its my 2021 resolution :) And so far i have been 31 days on ketosis checked daily.

I could summarize everything i've read and all the references i have gone thru, but would it be of interest to anyone...?

Northcaptain profile image
Northcaptain in reply to Patrick-Turner

Work in progress:pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/313...

Abstract

Background: Cancer is one of the greatest public health challenges worldwide, and we still lack complementary approaches to significantly enhance the efficacy of standard anticancer therapies. The ketogenic diet, a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet with adequate amounts of protein, appears to sensitize most cancers to standard treatment by exploiting the reprogramed metabolism of cancer cells, making the diet a promising candidate as an adjuvant cancer therapy.

Scope of review: To critically evaluate available preclinical and clinical evidence regarding the ketogenic diet in the context of cancer therapy. Furthermore, we highlight important mechanisms that could explain the potential antitumor effects of the ketogenic diet.

Major conclusions: The ketogenic diet probably creates an unfavorable metabolic environment for cancer cells and thus can be regarded as a promising adjuvant as a patient-specific multifactorial therapy. The majority of preclinical and several clinical studies argue for the use of the ketogenic diet in combination with standard therapies based on its potential to enhance the antitumor effects of classic chemo- and radiotherapy, its overall good safety and tolerability and increase in quality of life. However, to further elucidate the mechanisms of the ketogenic diet as a therapy and evaluate its application in clinical practice, more molecular studies as well as uniformly controlled clinical trials are needed.

Keywords: Adjuvant cancer therapy; Ketogenic diet; Tumor metabolism; Tumorigenesis.

Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier GmbH.. All rights reserved.

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to Northcaptain

Well, I note all you have said, but it is time I reduced carbs a bit more because I've noticed more fat being stored. I had intestine blockage in 2019, where I lost 10% weight in muscles and fat. I've now regained 3kg muscle and cycling quite fast enough, but fat % is increasing, so I need to cut carbs and get body to burn fats. I have no idea if I would be in ketosis, maybe, and have no idea what if any effect it would have on effectiveness of Ra223.

My onco does not appear to know whether chemo or Ra223 would be better, and has left decision to me, and I may know as much as he does about any outcome, which is a bit uncertain. So I want to keep cycling during time on Ra223, keep weight down, and maybe ease off cycling a bit during side effect time of diarea.

I should begin Ra223 within next 3 weeks.

Hopefully knowledge about keto becomes easier to understand and apply but for most men who cannot look down and see their dick because a big fat belly is in the way, trying to convert men to "ketoic" religion will only fall on ears that don't want to hear. But even if keto made Pca treatments work for 2 times longer than usual, men still realize they are up a terrible creek in a barbwire canoe. Handing them a better paddle would not solve their problems. :-)

Time for a vego sandwich for lunch.

I've just begun to quit drinking any coffee. Made me feel a lot better. Green tea only.

Patrick Turner.

Northcaptain profile image
Northcaptain in reply to Patrick-Turner

Dear Patrick...i find it a little bit sad that your onco is giving you the last decision. There is no other professional advice you can get ? But on a lighter note, maybe your intuition is worth many Phd. Ha ha yes what is the use of a sophisticated scale with bluetooth... when the best fat measurement is how much % of your dick you see when you go peeing. If 100 % then you have 10% fat. If 50 % then you have 20 % LOLLLLLL

Keep us posted of your decision... these are not easy time :(

😔

Northcaptain profile image
Northcaptain in reply to Northcaptain

Another study from Japan last year:

mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/5/147...

"Promising...but its not complete yet. There is a lot of research that need to be done to find the exact formula to knock off the feeding of the cancer cells. There are trials with metformin that reduce glucose, and other exotic molecule that could disable the uptake of glutamine. More to come in some months/years.

4. Discussion

The ketogenic diet is expected to be effective for cancer. In fact, the possibility of using the ketogenic diet was examined in various types of cancer model mice [10,11]. The effects of the ketogenic diet alone differ depending on the type of cancer, but the combined effect of the ketogenic diet with chemotherapy or radiation is promising [10,11].

Patrick-Turner profile image
Patrick-Turner in reply to Northcaptain

The other conundrum is that regardless of fat%, ADT tends to make it very off-putting to ever look at your old friend Rodger because the whole of you has changed from being a Hot Rooster, to being a feather duster once docs have exterminated all sexual functioning of Rodger. You only ever need to know its a drain pipe. But at about the time I went on ADT, all the dear ladies of say 50yo who I should have found willing to date have run away and hidden from men because Nature removes the supply of their hormones. There are cases of replacement hormone therapy in older dames, but I ain't ever met one case, usually they just don't want men, or anything male in their lives, and conversations with men stall in 5 minutes while lasting hours with another lady.

So by 62 and after years spent being single, I was quite the right age to farewell a functioning Rodger, and I realized that I quite enjoyed a 2 hour bike ride better than spending 2 hours riding a lady. There came a time when the only women to touch me deeply were a lady doctor who gave me a DRE for about 20 seconds before diagnosis and she felt nothing hard, so Pg was big soft puffy ball 3 times normal size. 2 years later, Miss India, a 30yo registra doc in RT dept casually examined my innards to see if PG had reduced in size after 8 months ADT so it was small target for EBRT.

The funny thing is my two sisters were far more propelled to finding a Rodger with a decent kind of man attached, who wasn't boring, all through their 20s and 30s, and one sister could not do without some bloke's Rodger for longer than a fortnight.

Oh how the ladies change between 25 and 50!

I would often go years between times for Rodger to enjoy himself. I always could see that so many ladies wanted to be manipulative and would have been financially ruinous to get involved with - until proven otherwise.

I have yet to read a copy of letter sent to my onco by doc giving Ra223 to outline risks of Ra223, so although I have emailed the hospital prostate cancer nurse with my concerns and preferences, maybe there's enough real info to force me to have more chemo. I'll have a read and a think.

Beautiful summer afternoon storm here.

Patrick Turner.

in reply to Patrick-Turner

PATRICK-I read everything you post - thank you for having the strength to be vulnerable and open . You have made my outlook broader. This evening my meditation is for you. May you live with ease. And you are not closer to death than you thought - because you don’t know and neither do your doctors. So there !

MateoBeach profile image
MateoBeach

I think the answer is treatments for very early PC, still HS and non metastatic at BCR that prevent the natural progression or evolution of the cancer to MCRPC. There are “hallmarks” cancer acquires as it progresses. Preventing this sequence from progressing could make it a truly chronic indolent disease. The drivers of the hallmark sequence are two: inflammation and genome instability. So that is what should be addressed in trials. Also earlier immune therapy such as Provenge at BCR rather than CR. There is a current clinical trial underway for this. See:cell.com/fulltext/S0092-867...

For the more advanced disease I would look to employing adaptive strategies attempting to stabilize AR+ and AR - populations such as by some version of BAT.

nature.com/articles/s41467-...

journals.plos.org/plosbiolo...

MrCatMan profile image
MrCatMan

The same science that delivered the covid vaccine cd help fight cancer and is hopeful but cd be a long way off...

from:

reuters.com/article/health-...

CANCER NEXT?Moderna and BioNTech, for example, are also applying mRNA technology to experimental cancer medicines.

Biontech is testing an anti-melanoma mRNA with Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche in a Phase II trial.

Among Moderna’s most advanced projects, besides its COVID-19 vaccine, are mRNA compounds to treat ovarian cancer or Myocardial ischemia, which are also in the second test phase.

None of the potential mRNA cancer therapies have reached the critical large-scale Phase III trials, however, and Kariko acknowledges that cancer presents a bigger challenge.

While a virus is a foreign intruder, cancer cells, however malignant, come from within the body, making them tougher to seek out and expose so they can be attacked.

Daveofnj profile image
Daveofnj

If a treatment is found that leads to durable remission, my guess is that it will not be a single treatment but a combination of treatments.

j-o-h-n profile image
j-o-h-n

My guess.... the cure will consist of all Pca customers pooling their Pca's and then a bidding war on which/who's Pca cancer they can buy. Sort of like a cattle auction. Come early and often......

Good Luck, Good Health and Good Humor.

j-o-h-n Sunday 01/24/2021 3:01 PM EST

in reply to j-o-h-n

As a spouse I would gladly take my share to spare my love a direr future ♥️👍🏼❤️

j-o-h-n profile image
j-o-h-n in reply to

That's because you're a phenomenal loving caretaker. Kudos to you...

Good Luck, Good Health and Good Humor.

j-o-h-n Friday 01/29/2021 9:17 PM EST

Fuzzman77 profile image
Fuzzman77

It’s been awhile since I have shown this paper about a guy that had way more metastatic cancer when he did the same APCEDEN autologous dendritic cell vaccines as I did. Maybe someone didn’t see it? He obviously had a dramatic result with just six vaccines. Look at his scans down in the paper. Not sure why one scan is blue? He did have an old chemo drug at the same time and Dr. Kumar recommends something in combination with the vaccines. I know Charlie met with him one of the times he and Paige were in Delhi for the Lu177 he did there. Six vaccines did resolve about 30 tumors for me but never got rid of the primary although it did keep me stable as long as I took more of them off and on. We aren’t the only metastatic prostate cancer patients that had good results. Dr. Kumar’s email at APACBiotech.com is chaitanya@apacbiotech.com if anyone wants to contact him. What’s really amazing there are a couple of glioblastoma patients that are responding as I write this. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

Fuzzman77 profile image
Fuzzman77 in reply to Fuzzman77

By the way when they say PET scans over there they are normally PSMA PET scans since they’ve been standard of care since at least when I went there the first time in March, 2017. I also failed to mention there are no side effects from these vaccines except if you’re fortunate like me they only make you feel better.

tallguy2 profile image
tallguy2

You are right to ask this question. If you read the fine print on the literature that comes with a bottle of abiraterone, for example, you will see that out of 1000 men, the median increase in overall survival (that is, for the 500th man) was 17+ months (the LATTITUDE trial). Is it worth it? You betcha.

The answer to your question is, yes, I believe so. As mentioned here by others, metastatic PCa is tough cancer to beat. Immune checkpoint blockade-based inhibitors (T-cell mediated immune response) and genetic engineering (CRISPR) are, IMHO, the way to a lasting remission or dare I say cure for advanced PCa. Our job is to fight this disease and give the researchers time to develop these next-generation treatments.

DFL208 profile image
DFL208 in reply to tallguy2

Thank you for your response. I really hope that by the end of this decade we are looking at treatments that are a completely next level from today.

fmenninger profile image
fmenninger in reply to DFL208

I sure hope so and big Pharma has to change their ways as they are programmed to treat not cure diseases to make more money. I often wonder why after so many years there’s still no real generic version of insulin that competes against Eli Lilly. Hmmmm.....

I am hoping that we see huge advancements so that my dear grandsons can enjoy my husband for many years

Cicero2K profile image
Cicero2K

Reading through these comments, I’m an 18 year survivor on a third recurrence still hormone sensitive. I’m trying many supplement and medications. Currently on metformin, statin, melatonin, boron. One comment that resonates is the role of fasting. It seems that fasting is as effective as any supplement or medicine for PSA ( now at 1.2) control.

TheTopBanana profile image
TheTopBanana

Well I give myself late night head aches sometimes from researching online. And every other day I feel hope, the next day I want to go all Texas Dallas buyers club and get in a fast car and smuggle out SOMETHING (RhoVac etc etc) for my father because I feel the research is too SLOW for metastatic cancer god dammit.

Anyway, this is my latest find: cell.com/cell/fulltext/S009... Interesting if it will make it possible to target DTPs?

DFL208 profile image
DFL208 in reply to TheTopBanana

I completely understand the swing between hope and dispair. I think it is very much a part of PCA. I am convinced that there is something in the research going on that is a game changer. We just dont know when all the pieces will come together.

TheTopBanana profile image
TheTopBanana

I also think APCEDEN, RAVENS, RhoVac, FMT to improve respons to immunotherapy, FAPI etc etc. is interesting.

TheTopBanana profile image
TheTopBanana

More background info regarding the link I posted:nature.com/articles/s41418-...

You may also like...

Melatonin as potential Covid-19 adjuvant treatment

COVID-19: Melatonin as a potential adjuvant treatment Author links open overlay panelRuiZhangaXuebi

Anyone Begin Having Heart Trouble Potentially Caused by PCA Treatment?

incompetence, was caused by some part of my treatment Anyway, I’m wondering if anyone on this...

Treatment change imminent for mcrpc

other option is to look at clinical trials of which there are many in the large metro area I live...

Treatment Changes and Good Results

I’ve had a few changes to my treatment since starting in December. As we thought might happen,...

Change of Treatments. From Firmagon To Zoladex.