Ever since being diagnosed with PC last October, I’ve watched my PSA go from 9.2 down to 5.3 and bounce up to 7.0 and back down a bit.
After the initial shock of the diagnosis wore off, I got busy living again practicing a healthy lifestyle with diet, exercise, and supplements. Then came Covid in March and my PSA jumped up (see attached photo in reply), and I fell off the horse and I am now trying to recover the lost ground before getting that.
While I feel somewhat confident in the AS program at UCLA, I want to maximize the amount of time I have before major treatment. I would appreciate anyone’s time, sharing their experiences, that has made significant lifestyle changes with diet, exercise and supplements, and were able to prolong the inevitable.
My current diet is:
Zero red meat, dairy, gluten, and sugars
Fruit and plant protein based smoothie in the morning.
Lunch is salads with micro greens, and lean tuna, salmon, chicken.
Dinner is a salad similar to lunch, and often lightly sautéed vegetables.
I’m still refining my supplement stack (see attached photo in reply).
I know this is not a long term strategy, I’m just sharing to hear what others have experienced (please be kind).
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Maximode
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if you don’t know Dr. Moyad in Michigan, you might want to listen to his podcasts or get his book The Supplement Handbook. Also, being on AS myself, the hardest aspect of this is my mental health and trying to not think about it too much and move on. My urologist said from the beginning, and he gave me 3 recommendations, that if my mental health is going to suffer, then AS might not be worth it. I’m in the arts, so for me, many of the things that I do are therapeutic, including teaching to cancer patients. I would look into doing something that you never thought about doing, or any kind of class in your area, and you’ll be surprised at how helpful it can be. Hope that this is helpful. Also, look at Dr. Scholz’s books.
I remember eating a lot of tomato paste when my PSA started to rise. It went down slightly, which I attributed to lycopene. But then it went up again. This was before I understood how PSA can fluctuate. I also bought a drawer full of supplements. I laugh at myself now, and I hope you will develop a sense of humor about the unscientific measures your panic is driving you to take now.
The one thing I did back then that I still do is learn to practice mindfulness. I also learned about levels of evidence.
Thank you TA, I recently discovered mindfulness and have to practice it multiple times a day to keep the QoL in balance. Otherwise the mental whatif demons run amuck.
That’s a lot of pills, how do you know that they don’t interfere with each other or your other medications? Supplements just worry me, I find for me, foods I eat provide the vitamins and nutrients I need naturally. If you feel like they control your psa, then that’s all that matters. Eating healthy is beneficial systemically as far as overall health.
I’m not taking all those in the same cycle. Through months of research and trial and error I derived this stack. Respecting the focus of the thread, I’ll not comment to much on why I chose each one, other than to say it’s specific to the metabolic path that PC requires to grow.
I skip meat & fish at all as well as sugar & oil. Instead of this I go with nuts & seeds. Whole of whole wheat and unprocessed food. And beans & co are important for protein.
Regarding supplements: I recommend you input your daily intake in Apps like CRONOMETER for a few days (free version is ok). Then check, what you miss and just supplement this. I think you are focusing a lot on supplements and night overdue it.
Exercise is a strong weapon, also for overall health. Mix weight lifting, gymnastics, yoga and running/cycling.
I would add meditation, stress level seams to be a factor, too.
Having said this, I trust in SoC and usually follow the advice of my doctors. But I complement therapies with adding all of above.
To Magnus1964 comment below, I’m currently interested in putting PC to sleep while sorting out my treatment options and prepare for any potential side-effects.
My experience so far as a PCa patient of 6 years is that proper diet, exercise and sleep are important in the fight against cancer. There are many studies, relevant long-term studies, that show how diet, especially plant-based diets can affect the spread of cancer. More studies are needed for sure, but in my own research, I was convinced very early on after my initial diagnosis, that changing my diet to a 100% plant-based diet could have strong effects on the cancer in my body.
My doctor, who is a surgeon and not an expert in nutrition, was completely shocked with the follow-up MRI 6 months after the initial biopsy detected cancer, that some of the cancer had disappeared. He thought maybe he had made some type of mistake or that there was some other reason for the "discrepancy". 5 MRIs and another very invasive biopsy later, and there's been no spread of cancer and the initial area of cancer that seemed to disappear has never returned.
In my case, there has been no evidence of a genetic predisposition to prostate cancer. I've had several separate genetic tests run with the same outcome. That tells me that there's something in my environment - perhaps my diet, pollution, lack of exercise, etc - that was contributing to me developing cancer.
I firmly believe that my 100% plant-based diet (which includes tomato sauce 3-5 times a week), intermittent fasting, interval training, brisk walking and taking sulforaphane supplements are all making a difference. I have no way to prove that because I can't be my own "control" study. All I know is that my doctor initially strongly urged me to get treatment at age 52 when diagnosed. I'm now 58 going on 59 and my doctor agrees that I should stay on AS. Dr. Epstein has also reviewed both of my biopsies and 5 MRIs. He suggested staying on AS.
Yes, this is purely anecdotal because I'm relating all of this to my own personal experience. To add to this anecdotal info, I'll disclose that I was a long-term omnivore from Texas who ate LOTS of meat and dairy products including at least a dozen hard-boiled eggs per week for several years.
My point with all of this is that as time passes, more studies are showing that plant-based diets do indeed make it more difficult for cancer to spread. Additionally, plant-based diets substantially reduce inflammation in the body, esp the joints. I would never go back to consuming any animal products even if I were cured of cancer and even if, by some strange discovery, it turns out that animal foods aren't linked to causing cancer. The benefits of the diet have taken years off the aging process for me and substantially improved my well-being.
As for supplements, I would recommend minimizing them in favor of eating whole foods. Certain supplements - lycopene extract, for example - have actually been shown to promote cancer. Studies have shown that foods with lycopene can slow/stop cancer but only if the foods containing lycopene are consumed with the food that contains it -not as an extract. That shows that there's something about the combination of the food and lycopene, and perhaps other chemicals in these foods, that is fighting cancer.
Please do your own research on this. There are many resources such as NCBI, nutritionfacts.org, Harvard and UCLA studies, etc that demonstrate this.
I'm not sure I understand your question... But, it would be strange in my mind to find out that consuming animal products doesn't have an effect on human health. Red meat, for example, is implicated in heart disease, colorectal cancer and diabetes. For scientists and researches to then recant that due to some other type of cause would be a strange discovery to me.
Whole foods are unprocessed/unrefined foods with no added ingredients. An orange is a whole food. Oreos, although 100% plant-based, are highly processed and refined with many added ingredients, esp refined sugar.
My daily diet is chock full of whole foods including green beans, peas, all kinds of nuts, fruits, tomato sauce with no additives, etc.
I get protein levels checked yearly with my annual physical. I'm lifting weights twice a week, running sprints twice a week, playing disc golf twice a week (3-5 miles of walking each time), and playing beach volleyball once a week. I'm in the best shape of my life at age 58. I can do 135 pushups in less than 10 minutes, so I think I'm OK in the protein dept.
A quick glance at your profile - we have some similarities in our PC. I currently have my protein along with full blood males and testosterone checked every 3mos - I’m aggressively looking for a stable AS lifestyle, that would result in an experience like yours!
I feel really grateful to be alive today... I mean, regarding having technology available so I can research and read studies easily. 50 years ago, this would have been a drag.
I hope you're able to achieve that AS lifestyle you want. I'm an open book, so if you have any questions or want to chat about anything, I'm available.
Hi Maximide, Like you I am in AS, same life style changes, no meat, chicken, dairy , sugar .. just fish , fruit and vegetables. I do intermittent fasting, 16x8 .. also prolonged fasting ..
Well actually, I don't eat any meats including fish. In terms of heart disease, fish seems OK. In terms of cancer, I stay away from all meats including fish. My research has convinced me to stay away from all meats.... if that answers your question.
There are well-done studies proving that meatless diets increase life expectancy by at at least x years for those with PCa, or those with any type of cancer ? If so, I might consider that route.
Personally, I'd highly recommend ceasing all intake of any animal based foods which includes eggs, dairy, milk, fish, etc... I haven't missed any of it at all in 6 years now.
You can easily find studies online that explain the findings. I also subscribe to a youtube channel called nutritionfacts.org. It's run by a real doctor and is non-profit. They don't try to sell anyone any crap - that's the first red flag for me on any health sites. Also, they show the actual studies they base their videos on.
It's a very personal choice. I stopped all animal products immediately, but I have other friends/colleagues who have gradually stopped. There's no right/wrong way to do it. Whichever way results in a permanent change is the way to go.
Fish is actually meat, though... just to be clear. And it can also cause similar outcomes as other meats, although for heart health, it's hard to beat fish.
I am not familiar with this but have read a bit to suggest that some places - like the Faroe Islands- provide a better quality farmed salmon than some other places. The pollution including plastics in the ocean give me pause about wild salmon. Hope it works out for you though. Thanks.
allshall, It's the content of the "feed" that counts. Farmed salmon eat very different food than wild salmon. I agree with the plastic issue, and limit the amount of fish I have. Still, I have seen no negative affect on PSA eating a little or a lot of wild caught fish.
An impressive list of supplements. I would make one suggestion on your diet, leave out the chicken. Domestic animals are fed growth hormones to make them grow bigger, fatter and faster. Those hormones are in the meats. Prostate Cancer is a hormone fed cancer. That is my reason for not eating meats or dairy products. As to supplements and complimentary treatments, my approach has been to take them one or two at a time. Watch you PSA, when one fails, move into another. Vitamin D3 at all times. Some supplements I get just from diet.
As to future treatments, remember, prostate cancer is not "curable". The goal is to "live" with you cancer not "kill" it. More of a drug or combining drugs to "kill" cancer is not the goal. You are trying to put cancer to sleep.
It's really ironic, but many members who first joined our forum said that they practiced Veganism, or weight training or are supplement users or all of those practices together but yet they still contracted Prostate Cancer (Pca). Makes me wonder...
My favorite: Be what you is and not what you ain't, cause if you ain't what you is, you is what you ain't....
Vegans are also susceptible to all kinds of cancer. Diet isn't the only thing that can "encourage" cancer. Diet is just one little piece of the puzzle along with exercise, sleep, hydration, stress, one's local environment, pollution, genetic predisposition, etc... In my case, I have no genetic predisposition. I also have had, for the most part, a very stress-free lifestyle for many years. I ate a lot of meat and eggs, and a fair amount of dairy. In the off chance that my diet has little to do with my future cancer outcome, eliminating animal products has made my joints supple again and given me energy close to when I was in my 20's. I feel "light" all the time, but I'm physically the strongest I've ever been in my life as a 58 year old. I could kick my 28 year old butt. So for me, the vegan (I prefer "plant-based") diet is a no-brainer even if I end up needing cancer treatment one day.
Congratulations.......They have a technical term for guys who are fit, exercise and eat a special diet and yet still contract Pca,,,,,, it's called "a roll of the dice"....
I am 86 years old and if it wasn't for my balance problem I probably could kick the shit out of most guys in their early 30's....and up....(one at a time)....
Haha!! I bet you could! And I like your attitude. It's clearly been working for you since you're trucking along pretty damn well. I applaud you!!
Well, in my case... I got fit, changed my diet, worked on my sleep and changed my overall lifestyle AFTER I got diagnosed with PCa. It was a wakeup call for me. I was getting quite sedentary, eating WAY too many eggs (more than a dozen a week) and other animal foods... I'm not saying my diet caused my PCa, but the causes are narrowing since I have no genetic predisposition.
My doctors are pretty shocked that the cancer has not progressed and one section of cancer originally discovered disappeared 6 months after becoming a vegan. I don't think there's any luck involved, but who knows for sure?
Anyway, it doesn't really matter why I got it at this point. What matters is that I haven't had to have any treatment so far and I feel very fit/healthy with my lifestyle changes. Again, they're very personal to each person, so I would never try to convince anyone to do what I've done, but I'm an open and always willing to discuss with anyone who has questions.
Well I applaud your tenacity and wish you all the best in beating those tiny bastards. Hopefully you'll be around until the year 2065 married to a "AI" person.
Just a note about myself that you may appreciate. Between Marriages age 43 to 53 I would do 1,400 sit ups per day (4 sets of 350), 200 pushups and 300 leg lifts....In those days I weighed 200 lbs, 32 inch waist/pants and 42 breast/jacket. Difficult to find suits so I had to take pants from one suit and jacket from another. I no longer can handle that exercise regimen, however except for my tits I'm hard as a rock..... So I can relate to exercise and health. My real exercise today is HUMOR.
Wow, that's a pretty crazy workout!! I'm with you on the HUMOR part - that's what makes anything we do worth it. You sound like a pretty solid dude to me!
Interesting that the PCRI video concludes that diet/lifestyle made no difference in getting prostate cancer but a difference, particularly for recurrence or mets, made a difference in survival.
I'm doing what I always did- climb, mountain bike, backcountry ski. I eat fish and chicken, less dairy than I used to, a burger rarely. Added lifting weights with a trainer when I started ADT. Off treatment now - on monitoring. Feeling good.
That's very interesting. I'm not sure how they could conclude that, though. In my case, there's no way for me to know either because there aren't two exact versions of me - one who made lifestyle changes and one who didn't. Also, there's not two of me who had opposite choices growing up - a vegan version vs heavy meat-eating version. It'll remain a mystery unfortunately.
Well, based on what I listened to, it was a Canadian study conducted over 20 years with 12k participants. To start, that is a rather robust sample. They asked each participant every six months about their lifestyle and diet. After the 20 years they did a statistical analysis.
What they came away with was (listen to video for details) if you had a poor diet and lifestyle (little exercise, smoking) you were not any more susceptible to prostate cancer than the folks who followed a healthy diet and exercised.
BUT - if you contracted prostate cancer, and particularly if you had mets or recurrence, then YES - a healthy lifestyle and diet made a difference in survival.
I'm a scientist and I can tell you there are not many studies with so many subjects over a long period of time. It looks like solid science.
That's very interesting! I think the knowledge base is only going to improve. More and better studies are on the way, although that one does sound pretty solid. I'm glad to hear that the study demonstrated that a healthy lifestyle impacted survival.
which component most affected life expectancy? If all were followed except diet, how much benefit? how many confounders could not/were not accounted for in arriving at conclusions. Most of all, it muct be emphasized that zealously doing all the lifestyle changes will give any certain individual patient one more day of life. Only increase the possibility/probability.
does anyone have a link to that study.....maybe was posted with video, which I did watch, but maybe overlooked link in comments?
I have a great problem with large consumption of beans, so these types of diets are questionnable for me.. ....I don't like garlic and onions, so such diets would seem to be blah without. maybe there is more to life than just living 2 years longer, especially if those extra 2 years come with a very low QOL that comes with the treatments?
I understand that detection of wide-spread metastases might bring about a big attitude change!!!!
As far as beans being problematic, one thing I learned was to wash all beans thoroughly before cooking/eating them as it substantially reduces gas, bloating and indigestion. Also, I make sure not to overeat them.
QOL of is an important consideration for any type of treatment, lifestyle change, etc, so I totally understand any resistance to making major changes if it becomes stressful. For me, it was all about changing my expectations of a vegan diet one step at a time. It's been 6 years for me now and I wouldn't dream of going back to consuming animal products.
I tried being a vegetarian many years ago and hated it. Of course, I didn't have an "incentive" then like I do now. That "attitude" change is responsible for a lot of my personal motivation to change my diet and other lifestyle habits. For me, living longer and doing things I enjoy (I'm a musician/music producer) trumps satisfying certain old dietary habits.
So, you might draw a diagram of your priorities and see how they all stack up. Some people may choose to potentially live a shorter but more "robust" life... and there's nothing wrong with that at all. It's a person choice.
the key word there "potentially"....as with most things medical, the "better" diet is in no way a guaranatee of living one day longer...evidently there is some decent data indicating that such a "better" diet increases the probability of having some extra days/months/years.
I'm not sure the claim of many members here that Docs are totally ignorant of diet factors would withstand scrutiny? These are not dumb people, and just the fact of being in the positions they are means that Docs are pretty much by nature inquisitive types....at least that's the way it seems to me, right or wrong. and I'd guess many patients ask about diet, so certainly a motivation to up the knowledge.
Maybe I'll simply ask 2 Docs I've seen? Their opinions/knowledge about the opinions I read here.
I used the word "potentially" in the context of someone living a shorter life and NOT changing their lifestyle....
As far as doctors understanding nutrition, I can tell you anecdotally about my own doctors, who are UCLA trained. My GP started asking ME questions about how my diet is affecting me. In particular, she wanted to know more about the tomato sauce/lycopene connection so she could relay it to her husband.
My uro flat out told me he isn't particularly studied in nutrition. He's a surgeon! He told me he took one course in medical school that talked about diet vs disease - it was an overview.
Let me also explain it this way. I work in the music industry. You might think that a highly skilled/trained musician could step in with authority to just about any musical situation. If so, you'd be wrong! The more highly skilled a musician is, the more specific their specialty. It would be extremely rare to find a first chair violinist in a major orchestra that could also improvise jazz music.
Another example: doctors are curious, but their time is limited between work and their own families. I learned of Theranostics from a friend. Several months later, after I had researched it more, I asked my uro if he had heard of it. He said yes - a few days ago. haha So, I knew about it and had been researching it for months before he even heard of it.
Those are all anecdotal examples, but I suspect that's the way it really is in the medical community just like any other major industry. Would you take your Porsche to a GM mechanic???
I won't take your anecdotal evidence as proof of anything. Would love to see a study..but of course not happening. As to specialty, yes admit I'm paying much more attention to PCa stuff than to breast cancer stuff!!
Well, any of my own experiences by definition will be anecdotal... As for studies, there's no shortage, however it's important to read carefully what the studies are trying determine. For ex, there's a fairly large study called the MEAL study to determine if men with early stage prostate cancer could slow or stop progression simply by adding more fruits/vegetables to their diet. No surprise: it didn't slow or stop the progression. Why? Because participants simply added more fruits/vegetables but continued to eat animal products.
Try this search: vegan diet vs prostate cancer
You will have all the current studies at your fingertips.
You could also experiment with asking ChatGPT to summarize studies, esp ones that are more technical.
Diets for PC do not lend themselves to traditional studies. I used a plant based diet plus wild caught salmon and herring. The diet works well. It includes steelcut oatmeal, walnuts, and raspberries for breakfast. If I cook the oatmeal with too much water or add (almond) milk, the diet doesn't work. If I leave off the raspberries, the diet doesn't work. For lunch or dinner, if I have clams, oysters or mussels, the diet doesn't work. If I include fruit in a smoothie for breakfast, the diet doesn't work. How do you account for such things in a large scale study. You can clean up your diet say 60 to80 percent and you will not slow down cancer growth. I have been able to slow down, stop and reverse PSA with diet. It take a serious effort to solve the problem.
Agreed. I have friends ask if I can "cheat" once in a while... maybe have a steak here and there or some ice cream. My answer is that as soon as you water down the diet, the chance of it working decrease. It's a permanent lifestyle change that isn't for everyone. For me, it's been a no-brainer. I've had ZERO desire to go back to eating ANY animal-based foods just from how much better I feel. So, even if it wasn't helping me with cancer, I'd never go back. But it IS helping me, so it's just an easy choice for me. It's a tough sell for most people, though.
What’s your method for determining the effectiveness of something having or not having fruit or being watered down or not, that seems very specific to the way PC growth/regression is measured?
My prostate has been removed. I track ultrasensitive PSA from Labcorp and have about 60 readings over the last 10 years. All readings have been less than 1.0 and have been very well behaved (very little noise). I keep a very stable diet while testing.
If I remove raspberries from my oatmeal, it shows up very clearly in PSADT. When I put the raspberries back in, PSADT returns. If I have one meal/month of shell fish it shows up.
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any success stories slowing down PSA & biochemical recurrence? 
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