1st Time

Hi Guys:

I was diagnosed and started reading here about a week ago.  Question: Has anybody tried any nutritional cancer techniques.  I will probably be scheduled for surgery in mid January but have been reading a lot of success stories on the Internet of people whipping the cancer with apricot seeds, pomegranate juice, carrot juice, etc., etc.

Was just wondering if anyone here has had any success or failure with it?

Thanks!!!

Hello Motor,

Welcome to the forum! Sorry you needed to look for us but glad you found us. Hope we can help.

Tell us a bit more about yourself. How old are you? Do you know your Gleason score? It is usually written as three numbers where the first one is the sum of the other two. Big numbers are worse. Mine is Gleason 9(4+5) which is fairly bad. Most guys are diagnosed with Gleason 6(3+3) cancer which may not be a big problem if there isn't too much of it. Do you know how many of the biopsy cores were positive for disease?

If you are a Gleason 6(3+3) with a small number of positive cores and not much cancer found in those cores then we will be glad to talk to you about diet. If you are a Gleason 9 with lots of positive cores then we will want to talk about treatments first, then we'll circle back to your diet question.

Welcome to HW, sorry you need to be here.

There are a number of diet things you can do to improve your health and aid your PC treatment.

Completely beating cancer through diet alone is a bit - well, I don't know anyone who's that's truly worked for.

Andrew

While I would never argue with my friend, Jerry, there is some evidence that very-low-carbohydrate diets slow tumor growth... in mice... No reason to expect that it wouldn't work with humans but the diets are pretty extreme and it's hard to find test subjects willing to put up with them.

Here are a couple of links that came up in my first search page result for

"ketogenic calory prostate pubmed"

Low-Carbohydrate Diets and Prostate Cancer: How Low Is “Low Enough”?

The Ketogenic Diet and Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Prolong Survival in Mice with Systemic Metastatic Cancer

Kinda random but they give you the idea.

So, Motor. Cut out the doughnuts and tell us your age and your Gleason score so we can talk turkey here.

Cool. So scanning through the literature from those links and some associated links, the "avoid sugar" concept is extended much further. It's actually advocating a "ketogenic diet", sort of an aggressive Adkins type diet.

Nothing proven yet, some indicative animal studies, some indications of possible metabolic mechanisms in humans, and some Phase I trials being considered.

So, avoiding sugar? Nowhere near that simple, and ketogenic diets are pretty hard to follow long term. It's interesting to consider those diets as aiding the effectiveness of radiation or chemo. At least that would be shorter term and maybe possible to follow long enough.

This sounds like a rich field to mine for the holy grail of research..... GRANTS!

Who knows, maybe something will come of this long-term. For now, it seems unproven whether we eat sugary fruits or not is unlikely to have much impact on our disease status.

If it makes one feel better, proactive, "doing something" about it, then specialized diets may have value.

Jerry

So true that PCa cells eat glucose just as does every other cell in the body. But I think the question to be looked into and settled one way or another is: can cancer cells survive on zero carbs or other than adequate or normal amounts of glucose? Normal cells absolutely can. We can go on a barely adequate protein ( high protein might get converted to glucose I think) and high fat diet and survive quite nicely, at least for quite a while. A well known example of a group that does that are the Eskimos of by gone days who lived of whale blubber for most of the year. Or so I have heard, I have never really hung out with them.

Also, Insulin is a related issue. Seems to me like I might have read over the years that insulin- especially excess insulin like so many of us produce- plays a big role in the growth of cancer cells. And if I understand it correctly, insulin spikes the more sugar/carbohydrates we take in, remains chronically high in that large group of the population with insulin resistance, folks who are also found in the population of Type 2 diabetics and pre-diabetics. I think most folks in those two groups have chronically high blood insulin, what with the pancreas working over time to produce it to handle a life time of high carbs. I think there are some brainy types out there who also relate excess insulin, and or diabetes, to cancer:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22840388
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25473296

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25488912

article said...
CONCLUSIONS:
Type 1 and type 2 diabetes are associated with an excess risk of incidence and mortality for overall and a number of site-specific cancers, and this is only partially explained by bias. We suggest that screening for cancers in diabetic patients is important.

EDIT: ironically, just about the only cancer in this one study that was not made worse by diabetes, and in fact might have had decreased risk by diabetes, was prostate and melanoma! I'm on my way to the kitchen for some left over pecan pie!

I think (but don't know) these areas(high insulin/insulin resistance/diabetes) might be why metformin and berberine are thought by some to be beneficial in cancer treatment. I'm pretty sure that pancreatic insulin production plummets with extremely low/zero carbohydrate input. I'm also fairly sure that no amount of dietary fat(of any kind, saturated whatever) causes the body to produce insulin.

So, do we know that answer? Can cancer cells flourish, or even survive, on a very low carb/low insulin diet, like at least some people seem to be able to do? (some folks flourish with very low sugar- can cancer cells?) If so, does high- or even adequate- protein interfere with this possible benefit, by opening a back door for glucose and insulin? Any good studies yet? I mean, I would hate to give up my pasta and other beloved carbs, but I would do it if my PCa was spreading and I thought there was a real good chance it would keep my cancer from killing me. I've done it before, the only thing that has ever succeeded at taking weight off of me. If I slash the carbs, even with more than adequate caloric intake(NO hunger) the fat comes off every time. I have a few friends this has worked for also, all while improving blood chemistry dramatically. I'm never hungry, but I do miss the tastes of some of my food addictions.

Now for my argument against this wonderful possibility. Our 40 year old daughter in law died from Mesothelioma a few weeks ago. 5 months after diagnoses. But a bit over a year ago she had weight loss surgery. She lost weight at a nice clip and was never hungry. I knew she had to be in ketosis due to miniscule carb input and no hunger, so we got some strips and measured. Sure enough, she was in major ketosis as expected. So most likely, as well as a very low blood sugar she also had almost no insulin output. The whole time, an undiagnosed cancer was growing inside her. We did not find out about this until she could not stop losing weight beyond what she wanted, and developed some other symptoms: stage 4 at diagnosis. She was low carb( low everything really) until the day of her death. Low sugar didn't do jack s**t for her. And really, don't most cancer patients waste away? I don't think high sugar is the problem of most late stage cancer patients, is it?

Post Edited (BillyBob@388) : 12/15/2014 6:48:15 PM (GMT-7)

BillyBob:

When I was diagnosed I was quite overweight and looking to slim down before surgery (thinner patients recover much faster than fat ones) and I was looking for research, one way or the other, about using a low-carb diet to lose weight when I knew I had prostate cancer. I don't think the study I linked today had been published yet but I found some of the other research it references. That research convinced me that a high-fat, low-carb diet ought to be reasonably safe. I wasn't looking to cure my cancer, just to shed a few pounds, and the research was fairly reassuring about that.

And sorry about your daughter in law. That totally sucks.

Jerry:

Did you notice the part about the no-carb mice eating more calories but weighing less? I still think that the macronutrient composition of a diet matters. It's not just calories.

First the cynical remark, "Chiropractor is an expert in prostate cancer?"
followed by, "I am not a doctor, just a random person on the internet."

You need to be followed by an oncologist who knows something of the progression of the disease.

With those stats at a G6 AS (active surveillance) is a possibility. AS protocols call for monitoring PSA and repeats of biopsy at times. The key to AS is the 'active' part - you have to keep up the regular monitoring and decide what would trigger you to go for treatment.

Surgery now would have the advantage of getting all the cancer now while you're still on the young side and can better tolerate the surgery. Also remember that a URO is basically a surgeon and surgeons recommend surgery - there are other options. Investigate all before selecting a path. Make an informed decision based on science and critical thinking.

Diet and supplements might, might slow down the progression and give you a healthier life but it won't stop the cancer.

What I would recommend is that you learn all you can about PC - check out the sticky thread at the top of the forum. Read a couple of the books, ask questions. But most importantly you should get a second opinion on treatment options from another doctor or doctors. Other treatment methods are open to you as well, including various kinds of radiation (beam, implanted seeds, etc). You might want to talk to one of the medical oncologists who specialize in PC. The other folks here can recommend a couple. Many of them do prescribe and recommend various supplements and diets. Personally, I'd want to get that kind of recommendation from a medical doctor who's studied and understands PC.

Hang in there and keep us updated on your progress,
Andrew

PeterDisAbelard. said...

Jerry:

Did you notice the part about the no-carb mice eating more calories but weighing less? I still think that the macronutrient composition of a diet matters. It's not just calories.

PeterDA, I did notice that. It's interesting for sure. Studies push things to extremes so they get measurable results. Having those special mice eat a radical diet, that the researchers said a human probably couldn't do, had that interesting outcome. For us omnivores that hover around the middle of dietary intake, protein, carbs, fats, in varying degrees, we're not normally flipping our metabolisms into ketosis and so on. I'll grant there are metabolic aspects that may affect how we process calories and so on, sure, and especially so with extreme diets. I just think that in general, with a typically varied diet, that calories are the dominant consideration in weight management. Fascinating topic...

I love Chiropractors!!

But taking advice on cancer treatment from them my answer is "Hell no!"

Motor,

With your initial diagnoses, it appears you have plenty of time to research treatment methods, results and side effects. Please do not rush into any treatment method, especially surgery, at this time. You meet the "low risk" classification and should be looking at treatments that normally present the least severe side effects. There is no magic to surgery and it certainly isn't the most effective at cancer control.

As was stated, your urologist is a surgeon, hence normally their bias toward surgery. You should consider Active Surveillance to truly understand what it entails and whether you are a good candidate, mentally and physically. You should also talk to a few prostate cancer experienced radiation oncologists and learn about brachytherapy (both permanent seeds and High Dose Rate). You appear to be the perfect candidate for HDR brachytherapy mono-therapy, which has far less side effects and risk than surgery.

Most of all, relax, learn and have a great holiday season. Take your time to make decisions that will effect you for a very very long time.

As to the chiropractor's so-called advice, my nephew is a very good chiropractor and he would like to learn from yours what "adjustments" will cure prostate cancer. Also, could he share the clinical research that is so good about iodine that has escaped the members of this forum and their doctors?      Sorry about dissing the chiropractor, but he needs to learn where he should and shouldn't advise and treat before he can be considered competent and professional.....just sayin'.

Thanks for all the input guys! JNF, you can read the iodine article the chiropractor wrote on his Website. Just Google "Dr. Bob, the Drugless doctor."

Bob also said he doesn't trust those guys (urologist, oncologists) as far as he can hocker and that the prostate surgery is just another jaguar payment. I pretty much lost a lot of respect for him when he made those statements. He followed it up by stating, with a pointed finger, "if they put you on chemotherapy, they'll kill you."

I only went to him because my wife heard a cancer success story through the grapevine. While at the office the success story was not confirmed. But, a few weeks ago my wife and I were totally new to prostate cancer and didn't know anything. Thanks to some books, the Internet, and especially this site we have learned a LOT!!!

Thanks RCS. I do believe that a proper diet and exercise will help reduce the chances of cancer, or even lessen the cancer that a person already has. My wife and I have made some serious changes.

Although, I'm not totally convinced of all the miracle stories I keep reading about, although I thank you for the links above and will check them out.

I've read about apricot seeds, cottage cheese and laxseed oil, etc., etc. It seems to me that if there was a miracle cure based on nutrition that the insurance companies would have already jumped on it in an attempt to stop paying for all the surgery, chemo, brachy, etc., etc.

I think what happens is, a person might have success with one of the above methods, then it gets blown out of proportion into it will work for everybody. So, for right now, my theory is what works for one person is not guaranteed to work for another person. But it doesn't keep me from researching. A couple of things that seem to be overwhelming accepted by just about everybody is less red meat and more lycopene (tomatoes).