Benjamin H. Natelson, M.D.
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 Although standard medical texts (and insurance companies) do not endorse using PSA as a screen for prostate cancer, it is well known that patients with prostate cancer often have elevated levels of PSA. So when the pilot's PSA rose from normal levels of 1.1 and 1.6 in prior years to 3.9, he became concerned. His doctor told him not to worry since the levels still were within normal limits, but the pilot said he wanted his prostate gland biopsied. This was done, and a tiny area of malignancy was found. |
Gabriel Cousens, M.D.
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 Exciting research by Zhang et al, shows that, in a study on the treatment of prostate cancer, those who took the highest amount of boron were 64 percent less likely to develop prostate cancer, compared to the men who took the least amount.30 They found that the greater amount of boron-rich foods consumed, the lower the risk of being diagnosed with prostate cancer. In a study published in the proceedings of the American Association of Cancer Research, Gallardo-Williams et al. |
Mark Sircus
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 Experts say excessive calcium intake may be unwise in light of recent studies showing that high amounts of the mineral may increase risk of prostate cancer. "There is reasonable evidence to suggest that calcium may play an important role in the development of prostate cancer," says Dr. Carmen Rodriguez, senior epidemiologist in the epidemiology and surveillance research department of the American Cancer Society (ACS). |
Dr. Sharon Moalem
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 When it comes to prostate cancer in black men, the risk is considerably lower in sunny Florida. But as you move north, the rate of prostate cancer in black men climbs until it peaks in the often cloud-covered heights of the Northeast. There is a growing belief among some researchers that a lack of vitamin D may also be one of the reasons we get sick more often in the winter than in the summer months.
The combination of excess cholesterol and lack of exposure to sufficient sunlight may well be part of the reason that African Americans have such a high rate of heart disease. |
Benjamin H. Natelson, M.D.
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| Although standard medical texts (and insurance companies) do not endorse using PSA as a screen for prostate cancer, it is well known that patients with prostate cancer often have elevated levels of PSA. So when the pilot's PSA rose from normal levels of 1.1 and 1.6 in prior years to 3.9, he became concerned. His doctor told him not to worry since the levels still were within normal limits, but the pilot said he wanted his prostate gland biopsied. This was done, and a tiny area of malignancy was found. |
Steven V. Joyal
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 Evidence suggests that an imbalance of this type may increase the level of inflammation in the body and increase the risk of heart disease, arthritis, and certain types of cancer, including prostate cancer.
For millions of years, humans evolved on a diet rich in natural omega-3 food sources, including free-range game, fish, marine mammals, nuts, and fresh seaweed. In the early twentieth century, however, food manufacturers in the industrialized nations began literally pouring corn oil—a source of omega-6 fatty acids—into the food chain. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Get a tan and help prevent prostate cancer. It's not an exaggeration. It sounds ridiculous at first, especially if you've believed all the crazy hype about sunlight being dangerous, but the truth is that if you have a healthy tan, your odds of ever getting prostate cancer or breast cancer, or suffering from these many other diseases are dramatically reduced.
Just remember that tanning is not smart if you don't have lots of antioxidants in your diet. It is the dietary antioxidants that help protect your skin from UV damage. So eat lots of blueberries, superfoods and nutritional supplements. |
Ron Garner
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 Jensen had prostate cancer that had metastasized into the bone. His wife called me and asked if I could help. His family and employees had visited him for the last time, and his doctors had given up hope. As far as everyone was concerned, Dr. Jensen was dead.
When I first came to see Dr. Jensen he was down to 76 pounds. He was skin and bone and just wanted to die. So I asked him, "Do you want to live? And if so, why?" The first thing we had to do was kindle his desire to fight for his life. |
Dr. Paula Baillie-Hamilton
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 The number of new cases of American men diagnosed with prostate cancer between 1983 and 1989 rose by a hefty 6.4 percent. In fact, the older a man is, the more likely he is to develop it. Hard statistics obtained from autopsies of men who have died from other causes reveal that a staggering 40 percent of men over the age of fifty have prostate cancer. The risk increases as the decades pass, so by the age of eighty, a colossal 70 percent of American men have it. For men in their nineties, it's a near certainty. |
Mehmet C. Oz., M.D. and Michael F. Roizen, M.D.
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 The main criticism of testosterone therapy has been its reported links to prostate cancer. While there's evidence that the total size of the prostate enlarges in men who take testosterone, there's no clinical evidence that it actually influences prostate function, such as blocking urinary flow so you are up all night visiting the toilet. |
| Men should consider taking zinc supplements, because men with higher zinc levels seem to have a lower risk of prostate cancer. Try a dose of about 30 milligrams a day (if you take a multivitamin, it may be in that already).
YOU Tip: Kick the Caffeine. For men with BPH, going to the bathroom can be hard. That's because the pressure on the bladder and a sphincter that spasms make it difficult to let the urine out. But once the sphincter relaxes, all flows like a rushing river. To help the sphincter relax, cut down on coffee and caffeine— which put the serious squeeze on. |
| Taking 162 milligrams of aspirin a day (that's two baby aspirins or half a regular, taken with a half glass of warm water before and after) can decrease the risk of getting colon cancer, esophageal cancer, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, and breast cancer-all by 40 percent. And it probably decreases the risk of stomach, throat, and several other cancers as well. Aspirin provides this through the reduction of inflammation throughout the body, although other cell repair mechanisms may be active as well. |
Ray D. Strand
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 We have achieved some improvements, but those lie largely in the realm of being able to detect some cancers sooner through advances such as mammography for the detection of breast cancer and PSA tests for prostate cancer.
Is earlier detection all we can hope for? No. In this chapter we will discuss some of the most recent advances in cancer research and how you may be able to lower your risk of developing cancer.
Cancer and Its Causes
Doesn't it seem that just about anything we do or eat these days allegedly causes cancer? Excessive exposure to sunlight increases the risk of skin cancer. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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 Research at Duke University published in the journal Urology showed that men with prostate cancer who were given 3 tablespoons of flaxseed per day and a low-fat diet had decreased cancer cell growth. And lignans interfere with the production of a nasty testosterone metabolite (DHT, dihydrotestos-terone), which is partly responsible for hair loss and benign prostate hyperplasia (the condition that makes men over forty have to go to the bathroom a lot at night).
The flaxseeds—but not, obviously, the oil— also contain soluble fiber. |
| Apples contain quercetin, a flavonoid that, in a 2001 Mayo Clinic study, helped prevent the growth of prostate cancer cells. Another study, at Cornell University, showed that phytochemicals in the skin of an apple inhibited the reproduction of colon cancer cells by 43 percent. And the National Cancer Institute reported that foods containing flavonoids like the ones in apples may reduce the risk of lung cancer by as much as 50 percent.
Apples Take Second Place for Antioxidant Power
But wait, there's more! |
Mehmet C. Oz., M.D. and Michael F. Roizen, M.D.
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| What we want you to know is this: Not all prostate cancer needs to be treated aggressively with surgery (the side effects of removal can be urinary incontinence and sexual dysfunction, because the nerves that control erections are next to the prostate). |
| You need to talk to your doctor about your own levels and be cautious if you have thyroid issues or a rising PSA, because DHEA is the precursor of androgens, and superhigh levels of androgens might be linked to prostate cancer; even normal levels may be a problem if you already have the disease. |
Bottom Line Health
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| Elevated estrogen may increase the risk of benign prostatic hyperplasia (prostate gland enlargement) as well as prostate cancer.
Important: Men who are at high risk for prostate disease—due to an elevated prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test or an abnormally sized or shaped prostate—or those experiencing low energy, a decrease in libido or other symptoms associated with a hormonal imbalance, should ask their doctors to include estrogen as part of a wide-spectrum hormonal screening test.
Andrew L. Rubman, ND, medical director, Southbury Clinic for Traditional Medicines, Southbury, CT. |
| The most common treatment for prostate cancer is removal of the prostate gland, but clinical studies show that the operation is of little benefit to men who have a life expectancy of 10 years or less because the cancer grows very slowly. This means that most men older than 75 have nothing to gain and may have side effects after sugery, such as incontinence and infection. Regardless of a man's age, he should seek several medical opinions (including that of a urologist who does not perform surgery).
•Cataract removal. |
Mehmet C. Oz., M.D. and Michael F. Roizen, M.D.
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| Viral infections still cause cancers, like some lymphomas, cervical cancer, and perhaps prostate cancer, while bacterial infection of your gums can increase your risk of pancreatic cancer, heart disease, and stroke.
Believe it or not, more than 90 percent of the cells in your body are not actually yours but belong to foreign organisms. Even though our bodies have ten trillion cells, our intestines alone have ten times that many foreign cells. You're actually just a minority stakeholder in your own body. |
Dr. Paula Baillie-Hamilton
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| The levels of chemicals needed to trigger prostate cancer are not only encountered in those working with these substances on a day-today basis but, judging by the number of men who have already got this disease, it seems that the chemicalization of our everyday lives has put virtually every single man on the danger list.
As well as triggering the onset of prostate cancer, many now believe that chemical toxins can act on already established cancers to accelerate their growth, converting previously harmless cancers into killer cancers. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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| It's believed that phase-2 enzymes may reduce the risk of prostate cancer. According to research from the department of urology at Stanford University published in Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention, sulforaphane is the most potent inducer of phase-2 enzymes of any phytochemical known to date. In one study, sulforaphane arrested human colon cancer cells. And feeding sulforaphane-rich broccoli-sprout extracts to lab rats that had been exposed to a carcinogen dramatically reduced the frequency, size, and number of the rats' tumors. |
| It's believed that phase-2 enzymes may reduce the risk of prostate cancer. According to research from the Department of Urology at Stanford University published in Cancel- Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention, sulforaphane is the most potent inducer of phase-2 enzymes of any phytochemical known to date. And in a review article from the 11th Annual Research Conference on Diet, Nutrition, and Cancer from the American Institute for Cancer Research, the authors stated that "isothiocyanates are well-known protectors against carcinogenesis. |
| In another study, done a few years later at the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, researchers gave lycopene supplements to thirty men who already had prostate cancer. Those given the lycopene supplements had smaller tumors and less spreading of the cancer. Best of all, the tumors in the participants who consumed lycopene supplements showed signs of regression and decreased malignancy.
Lycopene also inhibits the growth of breast cancer cells; in research, it has suppressed and delayed breast tumors in mice. |
| Research published in the September 2004 issue of the prestigious Journal of Nutrition showed that this spinach compound— it's actually called neoxanthin—causes prostate cancer cells to self-destruct. Not only that, but it also helps prevent their replication. That alone is a pretty good reason to make like Popeye.
Spinach is a great source of vitamin C and vitamin A, which are vitally important antioxidants that help prevent cholesterol from becoming oxidized. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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 For example, while prostate health depends on adequate zinc levels, one study indicated that men who supplement with 100 mg of zinc or more a day have more than twice the risk of developing prostate cancer. We don't know why, though some nutritionists, like my associate Suzanne Copp, M.S., think that it might have to do with a copper deficiency that can be created by taking too much zinc. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 See Plastics chemical bisphenol A found to promote prostate cancer in animal studies.
8. Milk produced in the United States comes from cows injected with synthetic hormones that have been banned in every other advanced nation in the world. These hormones help explain why unusually young teenage girls develop breasts at such a young age, or why hormone-related cancers like prostate cancer are being discovered in unprecedented numbers. |
Ron Garner
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| He suggests that men should endeavor to maintain healthy levels of progesterone and testosterone for both preventing and treating prostate cancer.21
To date, it is largely unrecognized and unacknowledged that the male body goes through a midlife hormonal change similar to that of the female body, although more gradually. This time of life is referred to as "male menopause," but should more correctly be termed "andropause." After about age 40, testosterone, the hormone of youth in the male, begins to decline at the rate of about one percent per year. |
Dr. Paula Baillie-Hamilton
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| Hard statistics obtained from autopsies of men who have died from other causes reveal that a staggering 40 percent of men over the age of fifty have prostate cancer. The risk increases as the decades pass, so by the age of eighty, a colossal 70 percent of American men have it. For men in their nineties, it's a near certainty.
But if you are a man reading this, don't get too depressed, because despite the seemingly high figures of those affected by prostate cancer, the fact remains that up to 90 percent never develop symptoms or become ill with it. |
Devra Davis
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 In an ideal world, screening tests to find early, treatable instances of cervical, breast and prostate cancer would first be tried out in small groups of people, evaluated carefully, and only put into practice on a large scale after full and methodical assessments. In the real world, that seldom happens. The story of false leads and false hopes for finding cancer is littered with exciting technologies, like mammography, that work in some groups, but get overused, oversold and understudied for all others. The result is that we miss chances to do it better until our failures become overwhelming. |
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