Here’s what you should “eat” to fight prostate cancer…

To view this on my blog site, sign up for future posts, and search for other topics I have covered on prostate cancer, please click here.

OK, I will admit right up front to bait and switch. In the last month I have seen two of my patients who are what the public health aficionados call “positive deviants“. One man is a professional who still goes to work every day. I have been seeing him for about 5 years; he has metastatic cancer in many bones and lymph nodes, a PSA in the 100’s, yet other than being a bit too thin, carries on with his life helping other people in his chosen profession. The second gentleman looks like an olympic athlete – great muscle preservation, a military posture, and also continues to work at his regular job in spite of having “mCRPC” which most readers will know as metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer. What is it they do far more than most of my other patients? What is their secret diet? …EXERCISE

In this piece from the New York Times on heart health, Dr. Emery, a cardiologist, refers to exercise as a magic pill. “It’s just that you can’t swallow it, you have to earn it,” he notes. You need to click on that hyperlink and read the whole article. These are the benefits for heart health:

• It enhances the cardiorespiratory system.
• It increases HDL cholesterol.
• It lowers triglycerides, a type of fat that circulates in the blood.     
• It reduces blood pressure and heart rate.      
• It lowers inflammation and improves blood sugar control.

Best of all, exercise is the type of medicine that appears to produce benefits no matter how small the dose.

But what about prostate cancer you might ask? The studies there are compelling. In a recent article from Taiwan, 125 patients who were treated with ADT and radiation for high risk prostate cancer were studied for changes in body composition. The patients experienced a 5.5% loss in skeletal muscle over 180 days, and each 1% loss of the skeletal muscle index resulted in a 9% increase in non-cancer mortality! Although it is a small study and it is shocking, but it illustrates the problem of taking testosterone away from older men. You don’t need to rely on small studies however. In the Health Professions Follow-Up Study, 2705 men diagnosed with prostate cancer were followed from 1990-2008. “Men with ≥ 3 hours per week of vigorous activity had a 61% lower risk of PCa death (HR, 0.39, 95% CI, 0.18 to 0.84; P = .03) compared with men with less than 1 hour per week of vigorous activity. Men exercising vigorously before and after diagnosis had the lowest risk.”

So, the message is clear. Compared to any “diet changes” you can make, or supplements you might take, exercise is definitely more important to enhance your chances of surviving prostate cancer. Ideally, you should work with a trainer who can help you develop an individualized program that takes into account your current physical fitness. From the NYT article, here is a place to start if you don’t have access to a trainer:

“Anything is better than nothing. But the ideal dose of exercise for adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is as follows:  

• 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise a week.      
• 2 sessions of about 30 minutes each of resistance training a week.

You can spread the aerobic activity throughout the week however you like, such as 30 minutes five days a week, or 50 minutes three days a week. Examples include running, swimming, brisk walking, riding a bike, playing basketball or tennis, and doing yard work. As for strength-building activities, ideally, you should set aside at least two days a week for 30 minutes of exercise that works the major muscle groups, such as the legs, back, shoulders and arms. What counts as strength training? Lifting weights, using resistance bands, doing bodyweight exercises like yoga, push ups and sit ups, and even heavy gardening with a lot of digging and shoveling. Vigorous exercise should get your heart rate up to 70 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate. Not sure what that is? Here’s how to calculate it.” I also recommend your resistance training should utilize weights that cause your muscle group to “fail” on the second or third set of repetitions.

So there you have it – how to change your “diet” to beat prostate cancer. Definitely not as easy as just avoiding red meat and increasing soy products, but almost certainly the most effective thing you can do. Movember is coming up. Time to MOVE!