Connect
← Return to A couple of notes on diet and cancer
Discussion
A couple of notes on diet and cancer
Prostate Cancer | Last Active: 1 day ago | Replies (24)Comment receiving replies
Question @northoftheborder -- what are your scientific sources to make these assumptions on diet?
Here are my sources that tell me that diet and prostate cancer are linked. As a point of clarification -- I had prostate cancer, had a RP and been clean two years.
From the Prostate Cancer Foundation: https://www.pcf.org/patient-support/physical-mental-wellness/nutrition/
From the Cancer Research UK: https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/prostate-cancer/practical-emotional-support/diet
Plant-Based Diets and Reduced Progression: A May 2024 study published by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in JAMA Network Open, involving over 2,000 men with localized prostate cancer, found that those following a primarily plant-based diet had a 47% lower risk of cancer progression compared to those consuming the most animal products.
Healthy Diet Score and Grade Reclassification: An October 2024 study led by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers, published in JAMA Oncology, provided significant evidence that a high-quality diet (measured by the Healthy Eating Index score) was associated with a lower risk of low-grade prostate cancer progressing to a more aggressive state requiring active treatment.
One point that needs to be made is each of us has our own cancer survival journey. What I chose may not work for you. I hated giving up ice cream and cheese. I chose not to eat it. My choice.
I am interested to know your sources.
D
Replies to "Question @northoftheborder -- what are your scientific sources to make these assumptions on diet? Here are..."
Connect
@dmccarthy104 These are correlation studies, and, as I mentioned, often unreproduceable, as was the case with the 2011/12 Richman study on eggs and prostate cancer.
Dr Walsh addresses correlation studies in his prostate cancer book (where he does advise limiting process meats, because that correlation has been consistently reproduced under many different circumstances). If you want to dive into the weeds on how difficult it is to interpret correlation studies, this might help:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6130913/
It's not that they're all wrong or unimportant; it's just that even when a correlation is reproduceable, it's not clear exactly what it means without a lot of additional research. They're correct within the very narrow scope of the study, but it's a huge leap of faith (not science) to jump straight from that to "if I eat less of X, I'm less likely to get cancer" (like concluding if you don't eat ice cream, you're immune from shark attacks 😉).
p.s. I hope my point that the prostate is not directly exposed to possible carcinogens your eat, like the liver is, but only sees them indirectly in the bloodstream after regulation and filtering is uncontroversial, but I can dig up sources for that too.