Eating for Prostate Health

By Joel Fuhrman, M.D.

My approach to prostate cancer is dramatically different from the conventional medical approach. It is built on a foundation of preventive nutrition and self-responsibility. Armed with modern science, I have designed a diet that makes it possible for you to virtually cancer-proof yourself by making intelligent choices in your kitchen.

Nutritional excellence, started as early in life as possible, is the only way we will win the war against cancer. As billions of dollars are being wasted on what is called “cancer research,” which would more accurately be called “drug research,” we continue to lose the battle to save lives. The emphasis must be shifted to nutritional education, now.

I advise all men to prevent the occurrence of prostate cancer—and to prevent existing low-grade prostate cancer from becoming aggressive—by adopting my program for nutritional excellence. Here’s my diet advice for prostate health:

1. Eat a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables, rich not only in lycopene but in thousands of other protective compounds. Each year, researchers find another carotenoid that has powerful beneficial effects and reduces cancer. Spinach was this year’s recipient of the anti-prostate cancer award, with researchers in Japan finding neoxanthin compounds (a class of carotenoids) that powerfully inhibit prostate cancer. In the past, pink grapefruit, watermelon, cooked tomatoes, pomegranate, cruciferous vegetables, red peppers, berries, figs, and many other foods all have been shown to inhibit the development of prostate cancer.

2. Drink a glass of fresh squeezed vegetable juice daily.

3. Have a bowl of soup made with cruciferous greens, leeks and beans almost every day.

4. Limit or avoid animal products to less than 5 percent of total calories, and don’t drink milk or eat cheese or butter. Do not take flaxseed oil; studies suggest it may worsen prostate cancer. Limit the use of all oil, using avocado, whole nuts, and seeds as the main source of fat in your diet and in sauces and salad dressings.

5. Take a multivitamin daily to assure adequate selenium, iodine, B12, and other trace minerals.

6. Take a small amount of DHA fat daily or a few times a week, to assure ideal omega-3 status.

7. Get a blood test for vitamin D every few years to assure you do not need additional supplementation. At the same time, check blood for homocysteine and MMA (methylmalonic acid) to assure that B12 and folate status are ideal.

If a hard prostate nodule is found during a digital rectal exam (DRE), I recommend that the patient get one year of hormonal treatment for prostate cancer. A hard nodule has a 90 percent chance of being prostate cancer, and there is also an increased likelihood of it being a later stage (higher Gleason score), riskier grade of prostate cancer.

For men who have eaten the Standard American Diet (SAD) for most of their lives, I recommend PSA testing twice yearly after the age of 60 to determine PSA velocity (the rate of increase of PSA over time). If your PSA is increasing at a rate of 2 ng/ml per year (shown to be a sensitive indicator of prostate cancer)1 then short-term hormonal therapy for prostate cancer can be pursued.

If you already have prostate cancer— and a Gleason score of 7 or higher or a palpable nodule identified by DRE—nutritional treatment alone does not offer enough of a guarantee of success. In these cases, a customized hormonal approach makes the most sense and has been shown to be very effective.2 Seek out a doctor well versed and experienced with triple hormonal blockade, who has the willingness and capability to customize a medical regimen for each individual patient. Triple hormonal blockade consists of a LH (luteinizing hormone) agonist, an anti-androgen, and finasteride. This treatment is usually performed for about a year and long-term suppression of cancer growth has been evident in scientific studies.

Quite a few enlightened physicians and urologists agree with the treatment options I describe in this newsletter. They no longer recommend local treatments (such as radiation and prostate surgery) directed at destroying the prostate. Instead, they have become experts in hormonal blockade. However, my approach goes farther than this because I add a nutritional protocol to prevent and treat cancer, which includes most of my general dietary recommendations for excellent health in general.

Why Prostate Cancer Might Extend Your Life
Almost all men who eat the Standard American Diet (SAD) or something like it will develop prostate cancer. There is no point in screening for it because if you are over 60 you most likely already have some prostate cancer cells in your prostate. If you choose screening, screen for the rise in PSA (PSA velocity) and ignore the total PSA number.

The good news is that even if you already have prostate cancer, it can be induced to grow faster or grow slower based on your diet style. If you have a slow-growing, less-aggressive cancer, dietary excellence alone can offer tremendous assurance that your cancer never will become aggressive. I have observed numerous patients who have prostate cancer significantly drop and maintain lowered PSA readings through nutritional interventions.

Finding out that you have prostate cancer, and learning how powerful dietary intervention is for inhibiting this cancer, actually may save your life. If the fear of this cancer causes you to change your diet and lifestyle as I recommend, you will lower your risk of dying from heart attack and stroke as well. The prostate cancer can be the wake-up call for you to make the dietary changes you knew you should have made years ago.

If your cancer is aggressive, dietary excellence may cause it to become less so, and hormonal blockade can be very effective in slowing its advance. Prostate cancer predictably responds to dietary excellence, and with the addition of a few testosterone-suppressing drugs, even aggressive cancers can be put to sleep.

References:
1. D’Amico AV; Chen MH; Roehl KA; Catalona WJ. Preoperative PSA velocity and the risk of death from prostate cancer after radical prostatectomy. N Engl J Med 2004 Jul 8;351(2):125-135.

2. Labrie F; Cusan L; Gomez J; Luu-The V; Candas B; Belanger A; Labrie C. Major impact of hormonal therapy in localized prostate cancer—death can already be an exception. J Steroid
Biochem Mol Biol 2004 Dec;92(5):327-44.