New data on Pomegranite

my POMx/OPCxtra "habit" costs me about $1.30 a day.  i can afford that especially when my life is on the line.

ed

 

This is how scientific progress unfolds right in front of our eyes...one step leads to the next...   We see some individuals here at HW who apparently require a higher level of scientific satisfaction than the scientists & researchers themselves.  For example, one frequent poster here at HW recently made these comments specifically about pomegranate  juice: "My argument is always the same, no positive 100% proof that pomegranate juice does anything for you …" "The rest of it is too unproven and too subjectve to take seriously in my opinion." "Considering there is no 100% proof …, amazed at how many buy into it." "…sounds like a lot of claims that they couldn't back up to the FDA." To those like-minded people, I would simply advise:  do not  consume pomegranate juice !   For the rest of us, this is simply another confirmation that outcomes are not confined to conventional treatment results alone.  There is a degree of variation in outcomes that is influenced by factors within our control (to do , or to consume ).  If you want to stack the odds in your favor for a better outcome, there are steps like consuming pomegranage juice that you can take.  The top specialists in PC all have their patients follow similar complementary approaches to optimize outcomes.   If you stick with only the conventional treatment, then you should expect only a conventional outcome.  Me?  I'm going to stack the odds in my favor.   Thanks for posting, John.         And thanks for the good laugh this morning...I just about fell out of my chair this morning reading this: Newporter said... ...it is really not slowing down PC as there may be pomegranate refractory PC, just like with Hormone therapy...

medved,

Yes, perhaps similar to Proscar's effect on PSA? Does Proscar slow down PC growth once PC is present?

I did find a few studies saying pomegranate extract killed off PC cancer cells in a petri dish, but a lot of other chemicals do and have no effect in the human body.

That is why I am interested in the Phase III I mentioned. This trial does have a placebo control group. It has two arms: pomegranate juice and placebo. Double Blind and Randomized.

John T, do you have any information on the outcome of that trial?

medved said...
I take these pills, but I do have one concern that some of you have alluded to: maybe this holds down psa but does nothing about cancer, so just masks a growing cancer.

I have thought about this too but decided that if anything slows my PSA rise, for whatever reason, I'll take it.

The ultimate slower of rising PSA rise is of course ADT, but even that masks the hormone refractory part of our PCa, which continues to grow.

There may be foods that have the effect of reducing testosterone, and if so, it is reasonable to expect that they might slow a rising PSA. Maybe Pom is one such. Mini-ADT without the side effects -- let me at it!

From everthing I have read psa comes from either benign prostate tissue or prostate cancer. PSA is a blood marker that both of these give off, so in order to reduce psa you either have to reduce the size of the benign prostate tissue (Proscar and Advovart) or reduce the volume of the tumor. I don't know of anything that would simply mask psa except adding more blood to your body to dilute the psa already in it since it is meaured in ng per milliliter of blood.
PSA is directly related to the tumor volume and gleason grade so anything that reduces psa or slows down its growth rate is affecting the growth rate of the cancer cells.
We know that some things like increased testerone and insulin increase the rate of tumor growth, so it is very likely that there are some things that would decrease this rate. Taxoter, which we know kills all sorts of cancer cells comes from the Yew tree so it is not unreasonable to believe there are some natural things that would kill cancer cells.

We shall see. I've beeon doing the pomegranite thing.

Next PSA will be in a week or two.

Mel

John T.,

Thanks for posting this on the board.

I was literally thinking about this the other day. I know there were studies underway for Pomegranates and thinking that they must have not had encouraging news because like Arbierterone, they would have let the placebo folks start taking it early...and then your post...

Logic seems to tell me --- take it. I have not seen any studies showing the reverse, only ones that show that doubling time increased. There appears to be no harm in taking it, so why not add it to a healthy diet. One should be consuming x number of fruits and vegetables daily anyways...why wouldn't someone just add this as one of them? (I have to admit that this has been part of my diet for at least 9 months.)

Perhaps it works like Provenge, by boosting a person's immune system and in its' own unique way. We know it is extremely high in anitoxidants and provides a wide range of vitamins and minerals.

It will be interesting to see further studies. Perhaps we'll see that more is better and we'll be taking it twice a day to get twice the PCADT.

Jerry L.

I have been skeptic about pomegranate juice – but this is continuing good news in its favor. As I understand the study here is how it went:

They started with 104 men who had rising PSA after “local therapy” which I take to mean surgery or radiation. These men were potential candidates for androgen depravation therapy. (Note the average age of 74.5 years.) The men were given pomegranate extract (not juice) at either a high dose or a low dose.

Each participant’s PSA was tested every 3 months. After each test a decision was made for each man whether to continue with the pomegranate or move to another treatment. It also appears that some men dropped out of the experiment for reasons not stated in the abstract. For those men who were kept on pomegranate for 18 months the PSA doubling time increased from an expected 12 months to 18 months. The dose level of pomegranate extract did not show any effect.

My opinion: as with many clinical trials, these were people who were judged headed for further treatment – that is, a pretty sick group. For a good fraction of them, pomegranate extract slowed the PSA doubling time. Note that there was no placebo “sugar pill” group for comparison. The remaining question is, would pomegranate help those who had been treated for PC but were not clearly headed for more treatment to avoid further treatment?

For a while Costco had these dark chocolate covered pomegranate jellies. Great stuff. Except maybe for the calories. I wonder if pomegranate jam works as well? I tried juice for a while, and liked the taste, but had trouble with digestion. I wonder if pills will have the same problem.

DJ

Just trying to make sure I've understood who took part.

The group selected was 104 men whose PSA was already rising and they only stuck with the trial if PSA did not rise to a level where they were given additional treatments.
Only about a third of the men were left at the end of 18 months
Thus the majority of the subjects had had their PSA rise enough, and fast enough that they needed extra treament.
So was the Pom doing much at all?

As for the use of a placebo in general (ie finding a group where the subjects would be willing to accept the fact that there was a 50% chance they were not receiving the trial medication, should it turn out to be a "cure")
Well that has always been the case with trials. But it can work both ways. I know of instances where a trial was suspended becasue the drug was causing bad side effects, thus the placebo group may have felt really lucky. But I also know of a trial that was suspended when the drug was noted to be having such beneficial effects so quickly that they wanted to apply for a licence for general use as quickly as possible and thus that placebo group was at a disadvantage.


In passing I myself refused to take part in a double-blind trial my hospital was running for a new type of sling procedure that would have been carried out at the same time as the Da Vinci. I did not want to find that I had been in the placebo group should it turn out to be wonderful, as this sling operation could not be done at a later date. Equally I did not want to find out I had had the new sling should it then prove to be a problem, as it was not certain it could be reversed. (Also having the sling fitted as part of the Da Vnci op meant that the total time in surgery would have been much longer.)

I am also writing this post about drug research in the context of the announcement a couple of weeks ago of the closure of the largest drug R&D establishment in the UK. (And yes guys it's the one where they invented Viagra!!!) And yesterday talks fell through to try and save from closure the largest drug R&D establishment in Holland.
I'm not in favour of vested interests paying for research, but closures like this make it seem to me like there is far too little money in the system, so perhaps it is better for it to come from a vested interest than to not come at all.

Alf

questionaboutit
There was NO placebo group, people were either given a low dose of Pom or a high dose. That is thus the major flaw, it could be that people who were receiving no pom might also have seen their PSADT slow down over time.
And note that even if your PSA goes up by 0.1 every three months, then your PSADT will still go down.

A rise of 0.1 from 0.1 to 0.2 over three months is a rise of 100% and thus doubling in three months, but a rise of 0.1 from 0.5 to 0.6 is only a rise of 20% over three months and thus a doubling in 18 months.
Not feeling as convinced about this study when I first started to read about it.

(Reminds me of geologists testing an ore sample for Nickel who found very high levels of nickel until someone else checked the sample using a crucible that was not made of an alloy containing nickel!)

Alf

Question,

I tried to read that last post of yours aloud to my husband. Could not get through it I was laughing so darn hard! If you"re not making your living as a comedian, you certainly should be.

I read somewhere that PCa is very diet responsive. So we buy the pomegranate, green & white tea's, cut way back on sweets (excluding dark chocolates), cut out the red meats, ( I'm sure we will still indulge on special occasions), all sodas, diet and regular, started juicing veggies to get more of those in our diet, added more wild salmon, fruits, whole grains, etc., etc., etc. I think we would probably try anything within reason that didn't kill us quicker.

I personally draw the line at crystals, and other such hocus, pocus, but who's to say that the whole mind, body, spirit, (mind over matter) doesn't have an impact for those that truly believe? Not any different than praying for a cure. Just my opinion...

MiraBeau