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Diet - Eggs or no eggs?
I am just beginning ADT ( Gleason 7 4+3 T2a ) and see the oncologist tomorrow here in France to set out the RT plan. No dietary advice so far from eg urologist and guessing that tomorrow will only be a practical regime for the duration of the RT. Respected sources constantly recommend a plant-based diet ( already on this ) with little or no dairy products. However, the court seems to be out in the matter of eggs. This concerns me, since B12 is clearly important on all fronts and calcium is clearly an issue with risk of bone thinning whilst on ADT.
Has anyone here received advice for or against please?
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@carbcounter American breakfast cereals in particular (but Canadian ones too) do tend to be unhealthy from a metabolic perspective, e.g. avoiding type-2 diabetes, which is a major risk on prostate-cancer treatment.
Even without added sugar, they're often processed so much that they still have a Glycemic Index (GI). I've actually heard people in the States talk about eating Cheerios as if they were virtuously consuming a health food, instead of eating something just barely better than the sugary cereals.
Shredded Wheat is OK-ish — the only ingredient whole wheat (good), but it's still heavily processed (less good), and still medium/high GI. If you're worried about blood sugar and diabetes, something like muesli or oatmeal made with whole oats (not "quick oats") will do you just fine as a breakfast cereal (low/medium GI). But be careful of portion size, because muesli is dense, so even though the GI is lower, the Glycemic Load (GL) might not be if you eat a large bowl.
Sweetened yoghurt is simply disgusting. I have no idea why people eat that. The sourness is what makes yoghurt or kefir tasty (but that's a different discussion 🤷).
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5 Reactions@paulsweeney Paul, the smoking gun - choline- is in the same category as iron in the genetic disease hemochromatosis.
A genetic flaw allows the body to absorb excess iron from the intestine, which is then stored in the liver and other organs.
This causes organ damage leading to cirrhosis…AHA!!!
Eating too much iron causes cirrhosis! WRONG…
The metabolism of iron - caused by a genetic defect - causes disease, NOT the intake of dietary iron.
Of course, people with this disease are told to limit excess iron intake in the form of supplements.
I know 3 people with this syndrome and all of them donate blood monthly or bi-monthly depending on their levels. And they all eat a ‘normal’ diet including red meat, eggs, etc.
Also, they are all of Irish/Scots descent, a group which almost exclusively owns this mutation.
So once again we have the chicken/egg conundrum ( no pun intended!) in which a metabolite (choline, iron, omega3, ALA) turns up in abundance in PCa patients and the false narrative begins, picks up speed, gets read by algos/AI and disseminated to the point that ‘experts’ are now quoting utter nonsense in their papers, videos and blogs.
We should expect more from the ‘scientific’ community. Best,
Phil
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4 Reactions@heavyphil thank Phil, I'll dig into this a bit more and see what the evidence says. Best Paul
@northoftheborder the ons to really watch are flavoured 0% yoghurts. To make up for the mouthfeel lost with the fat, manufacturers often add:
Sugar or sweeteners (sucralose, aspartame, stevia) some of which may be carcinogenic
Thickeners and stabilisers — modified starch, pectin, gelatin, guar gum, carrageenan
Fruit purée or "fruit preparation" (often more sugar than fruit)
Milk protein concentrate or skimmed milk powder for body
Flavourings and sometimes colourings (often the ones in the US have been banned for decades in Europe).
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3 Reactions@heavyphil Phil, really appreciate you pushing back on this — it's exactly the kind of challenge that keeps us honest.
Your hemochromatosis analogy is an interesting one and makes a solid point: finding a metabolite elevated in disease doesn't mean consuming more of it causes the disease. Agreed. That kind of backwards reasoning is a real problem in nutrition research and you're right to call it out.
Where I'd push back is that the egg/choline evidence isn't quite built that way. The key studies were prospective — they tracked what healthy men were eating, then followed them for years to see who developed lethal prostate cancer. The men eating more eggs had higher rates of lethal disease, with a dose-response pattern (more eggs = higher risk). That's a different type of evidence from cross-sectional studies that just measure metabolite levels in people who already have cancer.
The TMAO pathway is also slightly different from the iron/hemochromatosis comparison. Hemochromatosis is a genetic defect in iron metabolism that most people don't have. But choline → TMAO conversion happens in every man with a functioning gut microbiome — it's not a rare genetic flaw, it's normal digestion. So the question isn't whether the pathway exists (it does, in all of us), it's whether the amount of TMAO generated from dietary choline meaningfully affects cancer risk.
The evidence on eggs is strong enough to take seriously but not strong enough to be absolutely definitive. That's why on evidence.zone the card includes the limitations and doesn't pretend it's settled science.
Paul
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4 Reactions@paulsweeney That sounds disgusting! Here's the full ingredient list my Balkan-style yoghurt (Astro brand, which is very common in supermarkets here in Ontario and Quebec):
Skim milk
Cream
Skim milk powder
Active bacterial cultures
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1 Reaction@heavyphil I think the most important point to note from the foundational 2011 Richman study everyone quotes is that the absolute numbers are so low
The study retrospectively analyzed medical data from the 1990s and early 2000s for 3,127 male doctors initially diagnosed with non-metastatic prostate cancer, for a total of 19,354 person-years.
During that time, only 123 of them went on to die of prostate cancer (0.4%). That includes both people with and without high egg consumption.
So while " 81% increased risk" sounds scary, you're actually comparing "practically none" to "um, still practically none," even if there did turn out to be a causal link.
And I wouldn't blame the scientists for this. They were just interested in the academic question of whether there might be a correlation between egg consumption and prostate cancer progression, not testing whether a change in egg consumption would make any practical difference for cancer patients.
https://aacrjournals.org/cancerpreventionresearch/article/4/12/2110/49687/Egg-Red-Meat-and-Poultry-Intake-and-Risk-of-Lethal
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5 Reactions@carbcounterPlain Low fat Greek yoghurt is beneficial with previously frozen Berries-Blue berries, Strawberries etc is what i typically have.
Eggs without the yolk is beneficial for your Kidneys
:Pomegranates, Pumpkin seeds great for the prostate
I have 2 dates in the morning first thing
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1 Reaction@northoftheborder yes, better to greek/balkan style options!
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1 Reaction4-6 eggs daily for over 40 years
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