Dairy and prostate cancer: Conflicting information

I’m sorry, but after decades of reading all these conflicting analyses, I think it’s pretty much a crapshoot. A lot of ‘causation’ is more likely observation: firetrucks are always seen at the scene of a house fire, therefore they must be the cause of the fires. ALL things in excess would cause something after a while; moderation is the key. I don’t believe you would die from lung cancer if you smoked 2 or 3 cigarettes a day - but who does that? The act itself is addictive.
One cocktail a day does not lead to cirrhosis but overdo it and you are bound to have problems. I too use dairy products - 2% milk and different cheeses 3-4X per week - and I am not about to give any of that up. Even if I believed - and I don’t - that my lifelong intake of dairy caused my prostate cancer, it’s too late to worry about it since by now it would have had to have caused enough genetic damage to be irreversible; taking away the carcinogen after the fact doesn’t make the cancer go away. Many heavy smoker friends of mine quit cold turkey after their diagnosis - but they are still all dead from lung cancer. At your age mending your wicked, wicked ways is not gonna add too much more time to the game clock, is it? If you were in your 20’s maybe.
With that, I am now going to prepare eggplant rollatine with full fat ricotta and mozzarella. And if it kills me at least I’ll die with a smile on my face - haha!
I don’t mean to be glib or fatalistic - we really do have a LOT to say with what happens to our bodies - but again, you need moderation in thought as well.

I agree with you, but I'm also empathetic towards the people grasping onto various alternative remedies. Cancer is the ultimate loss of control, so it's a natural human reaction to look for something that will make you feel in control again, even if the control is an illusion.

I'm less empathetic towards people who make money exploiting the fears of cancer patients with dubious, untested "alternative" remedies and diets, but that's another thread. 🙁

As I posted earlier, I do think a healthy lifestyle (staying active, exercising moderation, and eating a balanced diet, as you mention) can make a huge difference in cancer prognosis, as long as you take the medical treatments as well.

I like most dairy products. I am also going on 2 years of treatment for prostaate cancer that had spread to the pelvic lymph nodes. My doctor said nothing about dairy products in my diet. I have cut back but still eat yogert most days. It is 2% but now I wonder if I should eat much les if any at all.

I guess I'll be doing some research on the matter plus asking my doctor his opinion.

I am G 9 CR advanced. My doctor recommended a plant based diet. Giving up diary and evening yogurt was a little upsetting, but my daughter introduced me to plant based cheese and yogurt made from coconut milk ( Walmart and probably Whole Foods has it). I am adjusting to this and I probably have an ice cream cone once a week. I have also eliminated cream in,my coffee and Black Expresso is good. Plant based is livable and it cannot hurt and may help. Best of luck to us all!

The majority of what I read these days is that dairy and specifically saturated fat, is really bad for PC. I realize there are many opinions, but my PC was outside of the prostate on reoccurrence, so I am doing what I can with a mostly plant based diet with seafood 1-2X a week and lots of exercise.

Here’s one to show how bizarre all this can be. As stated, I am lifelong meat and dairy consumer. Raised in Italian American household eating full fat everything - including all those ultra fatty luncheon meats - salami, prosciutto, etc. NEVER had high cholesterol in my first 65 yrs of life. Low in fact!
Now 5 yrs ago I was bitten by a tick and developed alphagal syndrome: severe allergy to ALL meat products - all of it- pork, beef, lamb plus gelatin and that’s in most everything. It was rough. Interestingly, after being on an all poultry and fish diet my cholesterol began to climb, so much so that I was put on a statin. My diet always included these foods as well as plenty of beans and other veggies.
So WHY, after adopting a no red meat of any kind diet did my cholesterol go UP? Isn’t my diet the kind the cardio guys recommend?? Isn’t it the Mediterranean diet??
All my turkey comes from a local organic poultry farm and the fish is fresh caught. And no, I have not consumed mounds of cheese to compensate for the absence of meat. My cardiologist just shrugs when I question him. There is SO much we don’t know. One thing I do believe, however, is that prostate cancer comes from mutated DNA. Is it environmental? Family genetics? Simply being older and allowing for the odds of mutation to increase? Who the heck knows?
I’ve read many prostate cancer studies on the National Institutes of Health website and even with my limited organic chemistry background I cannot even begin to follow the complex biochemical changes that occur via enzymes and other reactions between various compounds in the malignant state - It’s mind boggling!
So to think that a supplement or a tea or an herb is really gonna change that is just wishful thinking. Not eating ice cream or yogurt isn’t gonna move the needle either. But if you feel that it gives you some control, I totally get that and I do that in other ways - just not food as I previously did.
CRISPR technology might be the answer but first they have to find out where on the DNA the whole process starts to go wrong. So far they haven’t…but I know they will.

My doctor never mentioned diet either. I did end up giving up processed meats( lunch meat, sausage, bacon). I used to use skim milk in cereal and coffee but I switched out to unsweetened vanilla almond milk. This is quite good. I used to snack on cheese which I stopped but I still use Parmesan on pasta and will eat dishes with cheese in it. I don't know about these "studies" either, but getting rid of processed meats seems like a good idea anyway

Just to add to the discussion, I've been vegetarian since the 1990s, when I had some kind of stomach flu and developed an aversion to meat afterwards.

As decades of research suggests, the absence of red meat, especially, from my diet has led to excellent *colon* health (I haven't had even the tiniest benign polyp show up yet in a colonoscopy, unlike my siblings), but it didn't stop me from developing advanced prostate cancer.

Healthy eating is good for many reasons, but there's no magic preventative for all cancers.

My cholesterol was high so to avoid meds I stopped dairy and red meat and my cholesterol went to normal and I hope it will be good for my prostate cancer then I read that eggs were hard on PC ! Anyone hear anything about avoiding eggs?

Let your labs make the call. I consult with my oncology nutritionist every 6 months. The prostate cancer diet studies are all over the place. So, my oncologist goes with "balanced diet" and my oncology nutritionist goes with "balanced diet with limited red meat, junk food and by age 70 I should start thinking about giving up my potato ship habit." What I like most is she relates my diet to my labs in such a way as I can understand them.