Posted on 01/14/2020 5:07:57 PM PST by nickcarraway
Eating vegetables offers a lot of health benefits -- but it doesn't slow the progression of prostate cancer.
The finding, reported in a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, follows an experimental program designed by the UC San Diego Moores Comprehensive Cancer Center in which men with prostate cancer received nutritional consultation over the telephone.
The consultation encouraged consumption of at least seven daily servings of vegetables or fruit -- defined as a half-cup of raw or cooked vegetables or fruits or 100 percent vegetable juice, including at least two servings each of cruciferous vegetables, like cabbage, and tomatoes.
A similar program was found to be effective at improving the all-around diets of breast cancer survivors.
"One of the most common questions I receive from patients is, 'Are there any changes I can make to my diet to help fight the cancer?'" study co-author J. Kellogg Parsons, a professor of urology at Moores UC San Diego Comprehensive Cancer Center, told UPI. "Diets boosted by extra vegetables provided no disease-specific benefits to patients with prostate cancer. This finding runs contrary to prevailing scientific and public opinion. Nevertheless, we also demonstrated -- for the first time -- that a simple, inexpensive, and convenient behavioral intervention can lead patients with prostate cancer to make healthier food choices."
The study, however, was not built around how the dietary choices of prostate cancer patients influenced their overall health. Rather, the idea, Parsons said, was an assessment of a structured, "behavioral intervention, grounded in the field of social psychology" that was designed to "nudge" patients with prostate cancer toward healthier food choices.
The final analysis of the Men's Eating and Living, or "MEAL," Study included 443 men between 50 and 80 years of age from 91 U.S. urology and medical oncology clinics across the country who had biopsy-confirmed prostate adenocarcinoma. In all, 226 of the study subjects received the dietary consultation, while the remaining 217 participants received only written information about diet and prostate cancer.
Over the two-year study period, 245 study participants had their cancer progress, with a relatively equal distribution in both groups -- 124, or 55 percent, in the dietary intervention group and 121, or 56 percent, in the control group. The researchers also found that there were no significant differences in time to cancer.
Based on self reporting by the study participants, however, those who received dietary consultation did increase their intake of fruits and vegetables by a mean of two servings per day. Blood tests revealed that those in the dietary intervention group also had roughly 25 percent higher levels of plasma carotenoid -- a biomarker for vegetable intake -- than those in the control group.
"Diet is not a 'magic bullet' for treating prostate cancer," Parsons said. "But it's also worth noting that while a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables may not cure cancer, it will likely keep the body stronger and healthier, which may help patients better tolerate cancer treatments."
I just passed 6 months since my prostatectomy, but I disagree with this study. There are a LOT of factors that put your body in a susceptible condition to allow cancer to form. Just focusing on diet alone is stupid, when other factors can eclipse any benefit derived from a good diet.
That doesnt sound very scientific to me. One group of men is counseled over the phone to eat more fruits and vegetables, and another group is counseled to eat fewer and less fruits and vegetables. Of the ones that didnt die of a heart attack from not eating enough fruits and vegetables, there was no difference in the rate of prostate cancer between the 2 groups.
“Based on self reporting by the study participants...”
Another reason it’s not very scientific.
“I disagree with this study.”
Likewise.
Science is no longer science. Its been degraded by infiltration by the left for a long time.
Dairy and animal (not fish) fat, along with testosterone encourage early to mid prostate cancer.
Japanese men do not get much prostate cancer in Japan, but when they move to Hawaii, their rates match ours when exposed to dairy and red meat.
Chances of getting Prostate cancer increases with more consumption of saturated fat, such as is present in such foods as prime rib.
Eating fruits and vegetables helps to speed up movement through bowel but it has little effect on exiting cancer tumors in prostate.
The only good news is, MOST prostate cancers grow slowly and the patient is more likely die from other causes or old age. I remember reading somewhere chances of you having prostate cancer is same percentage as your age. For those living in Rio Linda, it means if you are age 70, there is 70% chance you have cancer cells in prostate.
Thanks for posting that well known fact.
We don’t know, but if they had an otherwise rotten diet, I’m not surprised a few more vegetables didn’t help.
Eat Mexican food. It won’t prevent the cancer but it will get rid of sewer rats.
Jeez, just enjoy your life
these men should have been offered therapeutic
treatment FIRST, and then the role of nutrition
could have been examined (assuming it was a real study)
based upon the size and treatment of the lesions.
“Eating Fruit, Vegetables Won’t Slow Prostate Cancer, Study Finds”
As Don Imus recently found out...the hard way.
We needed this unscientific exercise to tell us that?
I am more and more convinced as I age that common sense far ellipses the pop "science" of our current "research".
The thing that slows or arrests the progression of prostate cancer is orhiectomy (removal of the testicles). Prostate cancer feeds on testosterone and the testicles are the main producer. Not many guys want to consider that but IT WORKS!
Can i still eat fruit and veggies...> /s
“
Japanese men do not get much prostate cancer in Japan,
“
I would probably say drinking a lot of water and not overeating is probably advantageous. A little red wine once in awhile shouldn’t hurt.
I think genes are a HUGH part of it.
It should be Impossible that I don’t have diabetes.
We’re talking scoffing down horrific amounts of VERY sugary foods at night before bed for Decades.
Not the healthy sugary foods like fruit either.
Like a box of 36 oreos. YES it’s disgusting and yes at 51 I don’t do that anymore...maybe once a month.
But I did it a Lot in my 30s and 40s and i don’t know how my pancreas didn’t lose its mind. I think it’s the pancreas that’s in charge of that :)
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