Veggie diet has benefits?

It would be lovely if 5ARIs could be used to control prostate cancer, because we have cheap drugs which can switch off the isomers of DHT which the prostate uses, and these have far fewer side effects than switching off Testosterone. This has been tested, more than once, but unfortunately it doesn't work. It looks like it should, but it doesn't.

One thing 5ARIs do however is to lower your PSA without lowering your prostate cancer risk, so if you're monitoring prostate cancer treatment or progression with PSA, then 5ARIs can mess up those readings. In the case of the drugs Finasteride and Dutasteride, we know how to correct the readings (you have to double them), but for any herbal 5ARI, no one is going to know what the effective dose is or how to correct PSA readings.

A study was mentioned in the Times a few days ago.   This claimed that people who ate more fruit and veg were found to be more likely to have slower progression.   A short piece of the article is below.

'Men from the Cancer of the Prostate Strategic Urologic Research Endeavor (CaPSURE) study were asked to list the vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, meat and dairy they ate each day.

The team split the men into groups based on the amount of plants they ate. The group that ate the most consumed an average of nearly two more servings of fruits and vegetables, about one more serving of whole grains and one less serving of dairy each day than the group that who ate the least.

The scientists then measured how long it took for the disease to progress in any way. Of the 2,000 men taking part, 190 experienced some form of progression with their cancer during the period of the study.

The men with the highest levels of plants in their diets were found to have a 47 per cent lower likelihood of the disease progressing further when compared with those who ate the least amount of plants.

The researchers said that larger-scale studies were needed to inform policy and recommendations for those receiving a cancer diagnosis.'

 I keep meaning to look for more information but haven't got round to it.

My "beef" is not with you, or even your husband. I am concerned for vulnerable newbies facing prostate cancer for the first time, who might be led into thinking that they can "treat" their cancer with home remedies.

Jules

In reading this it seems that the Prostate cancer volunteers had no treatment for the cancer up until their deaths to prove that if you vegetarian  and nut diet you will live longer route .

To start with no two prostate cancers are alike and it would be impossible to get two patients that have equal age body mass and many other pointers to get the required end plan.

I wonder if this is real or another AI got into the system.In the eight years of having prostate cancer i have never come across another prostate cancer patient that has the same life style of a meat eating, wine drinking, and many other things but most of all my diagnoses ,PSA or Gleason score.

Please try to convince me anyone.

John.

Lizzo,

Prostate Cancer UK have the following on their website which implies they see no problem with men on hormone treatment using Evening Primrose and presumably those men are having psa tests, although I wouldn't assume it:

'Herbal remedies use plants or plant extracts. Some men like to use herbal remedies, such as sage tea, evening primrose oil and red clover, to help with their hot flushes. But there's no evidence that these work, and it's important to check with your doctor that these are safe for you. For example, there is a small chance that a herbal supplement called black cohosh may cause liver damage. This is rare, but you shouldn't take it if you've ever had liver or kidney disease.'

Link below:

https://prostatecanceruk.org/prostate-information-and-support/living-with-prostate-cancer/how-hormone-therapy-affects-you

I can't find anything to support Andy's comment about psa being unsafely inhibited by 5ARI, as yet.   Although I have found articles saying 5ARI is found in many herbs, flax being one, but perhaps not much.

I'd never heard of any of this before 2 days ago.  I feel that if Evening Primrose was protective for pca we'd hear a lot more about it.   Although it does have benefits for hot flushes apparently.

Loads of things act as 5ARIs to a minor extent, and there's no point in trying to avoid all those - you'd end up on a very weird/unbalanced diet. It's difficult to find out how much is in these, but if they're not used for reversing recent male pattern balding, there's probably too little to worry about.

The Finasteride dose used for enlarged prostate is 5mg/day, and this is the dose which halves your PSA.
The Finsateride dose used to treat male pattern hair loss is 1mg/day, and I don't know what impact that has on PSA (I don't know if the effect is linear, i.e. proportional to the dose).

Most of the foods/supplements containing 5ARI are not known for having any effect on male pattern hair loss, so I would guess their doses are much lower than the equivalent of even 1mg Finasteride. Saw Palmetto is a notable exception, in that it is effective enough to shrink the prostate and hair regrowth (at least in some formulations), although not as effective as Finsateride and Dutasteride. (Its formulations are also stupidly expensive, much more so that Finasteride and Dutasteride.)

Obviously, I can't assure you which foods/supplements containing 5ARI are safe to take without screwing up PSA readings, but ruling out everything containing small amounts is not viable, sensible, or useful.