Vegan diet - some early results

Got my latest PSA result yesterday - still 0.4, the same as 3.5 months ago. Good result, as with a well-established prior PSA doubling time of 7 months, I was fully expecting 0.6. Over six months, this gives a slow-down in my PSADT from 7 months to 14 months.

Coincident with the latest 3.5 months interval, I have switched to a mostly vegan diet. It was party time at my place - I celebrated with a lettuce salad

I described in this previous thread how I was testing aspirin together with pomegranate juice: www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=35&m=2010904 and that the combination had no significant effect - PSA rise from 0.3 to 0.4 in three months still gave a PSADT of about 7 months, much the same as over the previous two years.

For the next and most recent interval of 3.5 months I extended that, continuing with the aspirin and pomegranate as before, but adding OPC, and an almost completely vegan diet.

A vegan diet has no meat, dairy or egg products, and I am strictly following that with the addition of one and occasionally two servings of oily fish per week. Because one of the risks of a vegan diet is vitamin deficiency, I am adding daily calcium, iron, fish oil and men's multi-vitamin capsules, as well as the already mentioned aspirin, pomegranate and OPC.

Some will say that it is just coincidence that PSADT has slowed for the first time in two years, at exactly the same time as I have been on the diet. My doctor said that he did not think that diet has a bearing on PCa progression, but if I think it is having an effect, he supports a continuation -- even if just because it makes me feel that I'm in control.

However the coincidence is just too great for me, so I will say it is the diet, perhaps aided by the supplements.

This is not for everyone, but for me with the prospect of HT looming, vegan is a much more attractive option, even if I do have to forgo my first KFC Double Down

good for you Piano man.  i just knew you were going to be successful.

ed

 

Good job Piano,
Vegan was too strict for me but I tried it. i made several other adjustments and I think they worked for me. I have been squawking a lot about complimentary therapies and I truly believe in them. Diet is on that list. I am 20 pounds below where I was at the end of 2010 and my stamina is way up. Not to mention that my blood sugar is down, lipids panels are back in the normal range and my blood pressure is back to just borderline as opposed to stage 2 hypertension.

Quoting Mark Moyad again ~ "...eating a heart healthy diet may not help against prostate cancer but it's helping something that is more likely to kill you anyway"

Tony

Great Piano. I may have to go vegan at some point, but hope to avoid it. I am doing the mediteranean diet and find it pretty easy to do. I would hate to give up fish and chicken.

Piano,
After 10 years of rising psa and psa tests every 3 months I had numerous data points for comparison. I knew it would be about 5 months to treatment and asked my oncologist what I could do to slow down the PC until treatment. He said go on a vegeterian diet as many of his patients significantly slowed down their PC with this diet. My psa dropped 10 points from 40 to 30 in three months, every month was a drop. This was pretty convincing to me as I'm a numbers guy. It may not work for everyone, but it worked for me. Now I lay off the dairy and red meat, eating some but very little. A pure veg diet is very hard to maintain, but if you are really serious about it I believe it can do some good in slowing growth.
JohnT

Congratulations, Piano.
Hope it continues.
Did you see the articles on the internet news about concern regarding fish oil and PC?
Best.....Robert

Piano, I noticed you mentioned starting OPC at the same time as the diet, but only in passing. Any insight, thoughts, etc. about it, since you did start it also?

James -- i'm almost finished with my second bottle of OPC, and have a new bottle next to it.  about the only thing i have to say after almost six months of consumption is i have to brace myself before throwing it back every morning .

ed

 

OPCxtra -- an anti-oxidant. 

ed

 

ed, me too, know the feeling, but I am beginning to acquire a taste for it---a little.

Update at 6 months: I thought that a vegan diet would seriously reduce my blood pressure, but it hasn't.

Prior to starting this diet, my BP was 150 over something. Now 6 months later, it is 155/95. While I have carefully stuck to the diet, I have been slacking on the exercise, thinking it wouldn't have much effect (for me) on PCa ~ that will have to change.

So much for the placebo effect too ~ I seriously believed my BP would be down, so that places me in the 66% group for whom the placebo does not work either

I am due for another PSA test next week so that also will be a telling result...

Excuse me, I gotta go exercise.

Thanks Mel ~ I was a TRUE BELIEVER, so that darned placebo effect should have worked. Good luck with your diet ~ I am following your thread with interest.

Vegan diet update at 6.5 months: my latest PSA is in ~ 0.6 not as good as I was hoping for, up from 0.4 three months ago. There are several ways of looking at this latest figure:

3 months ago I was 0.4, so this represents a 50% rise in 3 months or a doubling time of 6 months
6.5 months ago I was 0.4, so this represents a 50% rise in 6 months or a doubling time of 12 months
9.5 months ago I was 0.3, so this represents a 100% rise in 9.5 months or a doubling time of 9.5 months

It seems reasonable to take the longest timeframe even though I wasn't fully vegan for the first three months, so this is the figure I have added to my signature.

As to why the sudden increase, there is really only one thing that has changed over the last three months ~ I have discovered vegan cookies! These are just like regular cookies except for no milk, butter or eggs. But, in my case, loaded with sugar. Sure I was only having one per day, mid afternoon. But having read Mr Bill's thread Sugar and PC and John T's link, Can Diet Really Control Prostate Cancer? I now don't think that was such a good idea. It's not the sugar itself that causes the problem, but rather the insulin that it produces.

So my next stage will be to lower the high GI food in my diet, and especially avoid that afternoon cookie. And I am about to try the Essiac tea recently discussed in Garyfoote's PSA Dropping thread. My wife tells me it looks like mud so that's a promising start

Piano,
I have 10 years of psa history taken at every 3 month period. Before any treatment my oncologist (Schotz) recommended a vegan diet when I asked what I could do in the time frame before treatment which was 5 months. My psa was 40 confirmed by two readings. After the vegan diet I had my psa taken every month. It dropped each month to 30 in three months before I went on Casodex. I know this is not scientific, but it has over 10 years of data points.
I stayed on the diet for about a year and found it too difficult to continue. I still avoid beef and dairy, but indulge occcasionally. about twice a month (not counting ice cream, which I'm addicted to).
JohnT