Personal Experience with Diet and Exercise

The best advice ever regarding food (I don't remember the author.) -

Eat food

Mostly plants

Not too much

Pomegranate juice:

I have used both POM and/or pomegranate fruit off and on
over the last 3 years, in a measured way, to see if it had an
impact on my PSADT. POM has a high sugar content (4gm/oz)
so, since low sugar is an essential part of my diet and exercise
program, I would normally pass. But, since POM folks claim a
benefit, I did try it.

I was able to get excellent (high) PSADTs using about 4 oz of POM/day.
I was also able to get excellent PSADTs without using POM at all.
I had very poor PSADTs with and without POM. So, I consider
POM a nonfactor. This is OK, as it serves as the only sweet drink I
now allow in my diet, up to 4 oz/day, and never on an empty stomach.

As for maple syrup, serving it over pancakes along with a glass of OJ
is my selection as the worst possible breakfast for fighting prostate
cancer. My second choice would be bacon, eggs, with toast and jam.

Cashless

Always good to hear from you, cashless.

I, a disciple, am on your plan, though I take a good deal more VitD (5000) and do get simple carbs in the molasses-oatmeal (white flour) bread I bake. Also I now eat baked chicken breast is small quantity very occasionally on the advice of my PCP.

Exercise is more intense - on a bicycle every day adding up to a couple hundred miles a week and much at race level intensity.

We raise blueberries which I eat daily year-round (frozen during 8 months).

I may be able to correlate my occasionally higher (though very low) PSA results with stress, maybe with winter.

Overall health is excellent, and if this discipline can postpone HT & SRT for even a month, I am well rewarded.

Best to all -
Wilderness

dude1969,

I'm a Gleason 6 (3+3) pathology and a Gleason 7 (4+3) biopsy.
Your question was similar to the one Diane asked several months back, and
here's my best guess at what's going on:

Diane asks:

"I am still trying to learn so much but was surprised to see that you were a 3+3 and had both
surgery and radiation yet your PSA continues to rise. Is that simply because the SRT just didn't manage to get
it all. I'm just surprised because everyone always says a 3+3 is so "curable". Just goes to show that every
case is so very different I guess? "

<< Diane, under the Gleason grading system a number is assigned that best represents the cancer cell
pattern as seen under a microscope. A score of 1-5 is used as by convention, but a pattern could be
somewhere in between. Having a 4+3 biopsy and a 3+3 pathology, I likely have a pattern between a
3 and 4, perhaps a "3.3" or "3.4" in the "cashless, high resolution grading system". My SRT took the
PSA from 0.3 to 0.05, so yes it didn't manage to get it all. >>

Hope that helps, Cashless



Wilderness,

your PSA results look encouraging, but they are quite "noisy". It would be hard to extract
cause and effect. How consistent is your diet? Cycling from 0.03 to 0.06 and back is unusual. The
question is, "Is this real?" or "Is it measurement error." I'm quite happy with the Labcorp "ultrasensitive"
test and would use Labcorp if available to you.

By the way, I experimented with occasional chicken and got decent results but decided to remove it in my
attempt to stop PSA from rising altogether. I might add it back eventually, perhaps at the twice/month level.
If you get into trouble, pull the homemade bread and see if that helps. Also, try to get some soy into the
diet. I did a "zero soy" and got a PSADT of 8 months, added the soy back in (daily) and went to 25 months.

Good luck,
Cashless

cashlessclay said...
..................

By the way, I experimented with occasional chicken and got decent results but decided to remove it in my
attempt to stop PSA from rising altogether. I might add it back eventually, perhaps at the twice/month level.
If you get into trouble, pull the homemade bread and see if that helps. Also, try to get some soy into the
diet. I did a "zero soy" and got a PSADT of 8 months, added the soy back in (daily) and went to 25 months.

Good luck,
Cashless

What type Soy products do you use, and approx. how much?

cashlessclay said...
BillyBob asks . . .
"What type Soy products do you use, and approx. how much?"

Billy, I use edamame (organic) . . . boil the pods in water with some salt and anise
spice (sometimes called star anise). Let it boil for 3-5 minutes, turn off and
let it sit for 2 hours or so. Pour the water off and eat or refrigerate. It lasts
about a week in the fridge so I have the 16 oz bag over a weeks time. I use
edamame in the shell (pod), since I have trouble keeping up with a one pound
bag of shelled soy beans. I also have soy as tofu and bean curd (harder/denser)
than tofu. I have some soy every day but not a lot at any one time.

The health benefits of soy appears to be a mixed bag, which is why I tried a
"zero" soy diet. But removing soy made an otherwise good diet, go south,
as far as PSADT was concerned. Adding soy back into the diet resolved that issue.

Cashless

Thanks, Cashless!

cashlessclay said...
A quick update to diet & exercise results.

Diet is vegan + seafood (except clams) - fast carbs.
(See past posts on this thread for more details.)

Exercise is brisk walking (30-45 minutes/day).

Clams were eliminated in Feb. 2017, due to their high iron content.
This was my last significant change.

My PSADT with D&E, since Feb. 2017, is over 5 years.

My PSADT without D&E is 7 months.

Cashless

I had an interesting thought recently. I have an older brother (age 61), who has been a serious vegetarian since he was a teenager. Over the years, he has added fish to his diet for protein. Regardless, we both have the same risk factors for PC--our father died of advanced PC at the age of 78, I developed PC at 56, our paternal family has generations of history of prostate issues of all kinds.

And yet, I recently asked him what his PSA was--or even whether he had been checked. His PSA is very low, his DRE's are showing no issues at all. So, an interesting anecdotal family study with 2 data points: One brother, a vegetarian for 40+years, with no apparent prostate issues of any kind. The other brother, who has followed a typical 'midwest usa' diet, develops prostate cancer in his mid-50's. Proof of anything? Nope. Of interest? Sure.

halbert said...
I had an interesting thought recently. I have an older brother (age 61), who has been a serious vegetarian since he was a teenager. Over the years, he has added fish to his diet for protein. Regardless, we both have the same risk factors for PC--our father died of advanced PC at the age of 78, I developed PC at 56, our paternal family has generations of history of prostate issues of all kinds.

And yet, I recently asked him what his PSA was--or even whether he had been checked. His PSA is very low, his DRE's are showing no issues at all. So, an interesting anecdotal family study with 2 data points: One brother, a vegetarian for 40+years, with no apparent prostate issues of any kind. The other brother, who has followed a typical 'midwest usa' diet, develops prostate cancer in his mid-50's. Proof of anything? Nope. Of interest? Sure.

I agree, that is very interesting.

Pratoman,
I do make note of my stress levels and have not found a strong correlation with PSADT.
However, I have not been under sustained high levels of stress as you have been. My
longest periods of high stress are about two weeks, which occur only about once a year.
I try to maintain a low stress life style.

Sugar and other fast carbs are something I watch very carefully, and believe can
nullify all other attempts to control cancer growth. I have wild caught salmon/herring
frequently, no meat, no eggs and only "trace" amounts of dairy.

Good luck on your diet and keep us informed.

Cashless

Pratoman said...
Cashless, I'm curious, can you define "trace" amounts of dairy?
It's the hardest thing for me to stay away from. Cheese is a weakness for me.

Fast carbs are pretty much down to zero at this point. I miss red meat, and chicken, but can live without it. My only sugar that I'm aware of is one apple a day. I'm sure there are things I eat in a restaurant here and there that have but of sugar in them

I've been testing my blood glucose several times a day. It's,usually around 75-80 when I go to sleep. For some odd reason it goes to about 98-104 when I wake up, but during the day, after meals, I test and it's 75-85. I'm hoping the morning BG starts to drop the longer I go without added sugar.

I'll keep you posted. I'm not the toughest in the willpower department, I hope I can continue this for long periods of time. We'll see, so far so good.

I have been just a bit nervous going into my most recent PSA the other day, because I have also fallen off the wagon a bit regarding some fav foods that I had been greatly limiting since diagnoses. But limiting these foods has made it very inconvenient to lose weight via low carb. I never have limited red meat, but I have been good about cutting way back on eggs and chicken, especially fried. Although as usual, the data is conflicting on that, but I did eat a ton of both all of my life prior to diagnosis. But coming back from a Hawaii cruise in March, I had had it with the ever expanding gut, I decided once again to do the only thing that ever worked for me: low carb. And, sure enough, I found myself greatly increasing (from near zero) the chicke and especially the eggs. 15 lbs and several inches on the waist came off pretty quick(though I seem to be stuck there, I would like another 10 lbs off), and blood pressure dropped from 120 or 130 systolic (top #) to more like 100. So that part is good, but it did make me nervous about the upcoming PSA. There was no PSA increase, but it has only been 3 months both since the last PSA and not quite that long for increased eggs and chicken.

I will say this: as much as possible, I cut my carbs with a plant based approach, though that is not as easy as a pure animal approach and I'm not sure it is as effective(for weight loss). So, on mornings when I did not have bacon and eggs for example, I would have what I call "horse feed". Some strawberries(minimal net carb after accounting for fiber), coconut, walnuts and flax seed(these 3 almost all fat and almost zero net carb), maybe(not always) 1/2 serving of high fiber cereal(adds maybe 5 gm net carb). Then a usually soy protein shake to go with it. Usually ends up a very filling, high fiber, maybe a total of 10 net carbs or a bit more depending on how much cereal and fruit and about 20 gm protein. I probably have that more often than I have bacon/sausage and eggs, but I'm not sure it holds me quite as well.

Is there any PC advantage or harm one way or another to any of this? Who the heck really knows. But at least I stop putting on weight and actually start losing waist inches and BP points. Doesn't taste too bad either, and my egg breakfasts are down right delicious.

cashlessclay said...
Pratoman asks . . . << Cashless, I'm curious, can you define "trace" amounts of dairy?
It's the hardest thing for me to stay away from Cheese . . . >>

I have a very small amount of "goat gouda" from Holland (perhaps 2oz/week). I do this
for vitamin K-2, related to bone and heart health. I try to use goats that are grass fed,
church going, and college educated . . . but you never know what you're getting.

Cashless