Personal Experience With Diet and Exercise (Part 2 Continued Thread)

I'm updating the introduction for this thread.

After surgery and radiation (SRT) have failed to stop a rising PSA,
I decided to get serious about diet and exercise. Now I have 5 years
of data using the Labcorp Ultrasensitive test and careful notes on what I eat.

With a Gleason score of 6, and a PSA doubling time (PSADT) of about 7
months, post surgery AND post radiation, I am trying to control cancer
growth through diet and exericise.

My last 7 PSA readings are: 0.461, 0.448, 0.455, 0.447, 0.483, 0.458, 0.439

Without D&E intervention, my PSA would be about 23.

If PSA was being "masked" somehow, it would have to be 98% efficient . . .
using ordinary foods. I'm not using any unnatural foods, and only a Vit-D3
supplement. Masking, that efficient, would have shown up as a PSA "gap down"
when I first started the diet, since the foods I'm using are essentially the same.
No such gap occurred. If there is masking, why do "crashed" diets result in
PSADTs exactly equal to my "natural" value of 7 months. That would be highly
unlikely.


My working hypothesis is that cancer cells need "insulin" and "iron" to grow.
Receptors for such are overexpressed on cancer cells compared to normal cells.
With that in mind, this is what I'm doing:

1) Make sure supplements do not contain "sugar", "Iron" nor "Chondroitin Sulfate".

2) Minimize an insulin response. The less sugar and fast carbs, the better the results.

3) No red meat, no eggs, and no dairy.

4) Basic diet is (organic) vegan with seafood. But, no farmed raised fish.

5) I start lunch and dinner with a plate of raw vegetables, especially broccoli
and broccoli sprouts. I have it with hummus made with olive oil, and add
turmeric spice, ground black pepper, rosemary, and oregano to the hummus.

6) Use Olive oil when you need oil.

7) Brown over white for carbs, if you have to.

8) Have some soy product daily . . . soy beans, tofu or bean curd.

9) I have 2 cups of green tea every day.

10) Vitamin D-3 or sunshine and a brisk walk 30 to 45 minutes every day.


The key appears to be breakfast. When I get breakfast right, I can actually
reduce PSA. Get it wrong, and the diet doesn't work at all.

My breakfast is 4-5 oz of "cooked" steel cut oatmeal, with walnuts and 2 oz
of unsweetened almond milk . I do not put fruit on the oatmeal. This is a very
small bowl with little milk. Do not take other liquids within 30 minutes before,
or 75 minutes after the oatmeal. I walk about 3 miles right after breakfast to
improve insulin sensitivity.

I used that breakfast and the "above rules" to LOWER my PSA the last two test
periods. In the past I have totally killed a good diet by: 1) presoaking the
oatmeal; 2) adding extra "liquid" to the process; 3) adding a lot of fruit.
The entire diet became worthless, even though I kept lunch and dinner the same.
If you want to "maintain" the cancer cell population, add 2-4 raspberries. If you
wanted to kill more cancer cells, reduce the oatmeal to 3-4 oz.

The question becomes, If you could, do you really want to kill off most of the
cancer cells and risk mutations that are resistant to the diet? I think not!
This approach is called "adaptive" or "maintenance" therapy, and is getting
attention.

Cashless

Ak, in a recent post on "Part 1" of this thread you say:

"I am following the diet inch by inch including exercise for 40 minutes( 2 Miles )
every single morning immediately after breakfast and a fast cup of coffee."

You do not want to be taking liquids just before or soon after the oatmeal.
From my post above:

"My breakfast is 4-5 oz of "cooked" steel cut oatmeal, with walnuts and 2 oz
of unsweetened almond milk . I do not put fruit on the oatmeal. This is a very
small bowl with little milk. Do not take other liquids within 30 minutes before,
or 75 minutes after the oatmeal. I walk about 3 miles right after breakfast to
improve insulin sensitivity."

Keep a record of what you are eating in case we need to improve on your results.
Also, try to relax. I'm recently able to "roll back" some of the PSA, which could
be very helpful to many of us.

Cashless

Thanks cashless,
I didn’t know about the liquids. I will do so, eat breakfast, walk for 2 Miles and wait a bit and then drink the coffee.

Thanks for the explanation cashless.

Do you follow this no liquids with meals for all of your meals or just for breakfast? If just for breakfast, is it because it is the first meal of the day or because the breakfast that you eat daily (oatmeal) is a carb?

My husband was told by the MD who gave him the diet that he follows (head of alternative medicine at MSKCC) to eat nuts as the first thing he eats in the morning - my husband has a small amount of fruit with breakfast but the doc wanted a protein to be the first thing that he ingests.

Bluebird, good questions! Here is my rationale.

I always have oatmeal for breakfast. Oatmeal has a higher carb density
than the foods I eat the rest of the day. And, water effects the speed of
glucose entry into the blood (probably due to soluble fiber content). But,
I also think that mornings are different. You are coming off a (fasting)
low insulin level, and spikes in insulin favor cancer cells over normal cells.

I don't intentionally avoid water for the other meals, but I have very little of
it. Also, vegetables tend to have a lot of water. Broccoli is about 90% water.

Starting the morning with nuts sounds like a good idea. I have walnuts
with my steel cut oatmeal, and eat more nuts in the beginning.

Concerning fruit for breakfast, I'm down to zero. I can do a "zero" growth
diet with 3-4 raspberries. The diet is useless at about 12 (mixed) berries.

I can have berries after lunch and/or after dinner.

Cashless

Cashless thanks for the links, I read the abstracts, and wish I was better able to decipher the language used in these studies.
However I got the gist of it, and it surprises me that there is not more discussion between patients and doctors about staying away from sugar. I'm also surprised that drugs like metformin are not more widely used in PC.

From what I've read, in these links and elsewhere, it seems to me, if one were to decide to eliminate one thing from diet, it should be sugar. Added and probably natural in fruits as well.

I've exercised twice this week. No measurable improvements yet...

InTheShop said...
I've exercised twice this week. No measurable improvements yet...

There is no doubt that exercise is associated with reduced risk of prostate cancer progression.

Here is one article about exercise and PCa.
Physical activity after diagnosis and risk of prostate cancer progression: data from the Cancer of the Prostate Strategic Urologic Research Endeavor

Isn't exercise preferred to insulin-sensitizing drugs?
Quote from the above article.

Vigorous activity is associated with lower levels of insulin, bio-available insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1), and inflammatory cytokines, leading to a milieu that may inhibit proliferation and promote apoptosis of prostate cancer cells.

test

OK, try again. Had to remove the 2nd of Cashless' links at the end, that got rid of most of the crazy results, except for the inexplicable large/bold type in the last half of that last quote. This is not showing up in the text or in a word processor, only when I preview it here or post it here. Don't know why that is happening:

cashlessclay said...
Concerning PCa and insulin, Billybob should find these interesting.
Billy, look at figure 3 of this first ref.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/rmb2.12039/full

Also, "New Players for Advanced Prostate Cancer and the Rationalisation
of Insulin-Sensitising Medication"

/www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcb/2013/834684/

and finally, "The Role of Insulin in Advanced Prostate Cancer".

https://eprints.qut.edu.au/50662/1/Ian_McKenzie_Thesis.pdf[url]

Cashless

Thanks, Cashless! All of these do indeed add a bit more info supporting my pet theory of insulin resistance and it's companion higher blood insulin levels stimulates- very significantly- the growth of cancer cells. Even including our favorite cancer on this forum, PC. Of course, my pet theory is that it is actually the main culprit- possible above all others, in cancers and a large # of the common diseases of modern civilization. That remains to be seen, but I do think there is much evidence, if not yet proof, that excess insulin is a major player.

From the 1st link:

Somebody said...
Conclusion

The improvement of insulin resistance appears to be essential for the prevention of PC growth.....As a meta-analysis has suggested, the relationship between prostate cancer (PC) and T2DM or metabolic syndrome (MetS) is still under discussion.[3-7] However, a recent study has suggested that pre-existing T2DM also is associated with a higher level of mortality in patients with PC, similarly to other cancers... .........

In the algorithm shown fig 3 from that 1st link, notice it shows this straightforward relationship(prediabetes or type 2 diabetes/ T2D could be substituted here for MetS they often go together):
1:Metabolic syndrome(MetS, look out for those spare tires/bowling ball guts as the 1st obvious sign of MetS) followed by:
2:Insulin Resistance(IR) then
3: Hyperinsulinemia(HI, more insulin production needed to over come the resistence to insulin that has developed) then
4: increased PC growth in response to all this extra insulin!

But what about advanced T2D in the other side of the algorithm? That is where the T2D has advanced so far that the pancreas is becoming worn out, the pancreatic beta cells are damaged and are starting to fall behind on insulin production, and what does that do for PC growth? It is suppressed! But, the new is still not good for this group, because what is the doctor's routine response to these skyrocketing blood sugars due to flagging insulin production which will probably suppress PC? Stop eating any sugar, cut way back on carbs, right? Not likely, it is hard to get a patient to do that. So, simply start the patient on MORE insulin by way of injections. Which bodes ill for all future health areas, including PC. Just inject whatever amount of extra insulin is needed to get a blood acceptable sugar reading, regardless of how many net carbs we consume.

Or, though some of our doctors and health advisors seem loath to emphasize this, we could attack the root cause of the MetS/pre-diabetes/T2D problem: cut sugar and anything that turns into sugar(net carbs which = carb minus fiber) once it is digested and enters our blood stream.

I have seen it advised that PC is different, no need to worry about sugar because unlike other cancers, PC eats fat rather than sugar, or at least it does not thrive on sugar like other cancers. But there seems to be a lot of increasing evidence that insulin stimulates it's growth just like all other cancers. And if you want more insulin, it has been known for decades how to get more, just eat more net carbs/sugar. That will also help you get more triglycerides, stiffer arteries/higher BP, Alzheimer's, peripheral artery disease leading to amputations, blindness, etc., ad infinitum.

Pratoman said...
However I got the gist of it, and it surprises me that there is not more discussion between patients and doctors about staying away from sugar. I'm also surprised that drugs like metformin are not more widely used in PC.

From what I've read, in these links and elsewhere, it seems to me, if one were to decide to eliminate one thing from diet, it should be sugar.

Prato, like you, I also find it surprising that our medical and dietary/health advisors don't seem to want to discuss this with us more. I do wonder why. Even with diabetics, often the emphasis seems to be more on prescribing a medication, than in emphasizing the cause of the disease which- if the patient will only do so, a big if I realize- can be readily dealt with. And if dealt with, will lead to abundant overall health benefits, more or less the opposite of the result of prescribing more meds, most especially insulin.

Oh, BTW, exercise is just one more way to deal with an excess insulin problem. Diet and exercise. As long as the diet does not consist of more net carbs. We see the result of that just by glancing at our population(obesity, diabetes, MetS) after the last 40 years of our docs pushing low fat, higher carb diets for our health. Even pushing exercise at the same time was not able to overcome the results of the dietary change.
From Cashless' 2nd link:

Somebody said...
However, the initial therapeutic response from ADT eventually progresses to castrate resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) which is currently incurable. ADT rapidly induces hyperinsulinaemia which is associated with more rapid treatment failure. We discuss current observations of cancer in the context of obesity, diabetes, and insulin-lowering medication. We provide an update on current treatments for advanced prostate cancer and discuss whether metabolic dysfunction, developed during ADT, provides a unique therapeutic window for rapid translation of insulin-sensitising medication as combination therapy with antiandrogen targeting agents for the management of advanced prostate cancer.
1. Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes and Prostate Cancer
1.1. Obesity and Cancer Risk

Worldwide rates of obesity have doubled in a generation with a global estimate of ~500 million obese adults (with an additional 1.5 billion overweight) being followed by a generation of 40 million overweight children . In both industrialised and developing countries these staggering numbers pose a soaring economic and health care burden as a result of chronic comorbidities including increased rates of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke, and type 2 diabetes (T2DM) .

Obesity is also a risk factor for a growing number of cancers...........

1.2. Obesity and Cancer Progression

What is indisputable from the epidemiology is the impact of obesity on cancer behaviour. Obesity is consistently identified as a significant risk factor for more aggressive disease and an independent predictor of recurrence and cancer-specific mortality for breast [13], endometrial, ovarian [14], and bladder cancer as well as prostate cancer [9, 15]. Men with higher BMI are more likely to be diagnosed with higher-grade cancers and higher Gleason scores and suffer an increased incidence of recurrence [3, 7, 15, 16] and increased cancer-specific mortality than men with a healthy BMI [16–18]. ............

However, it is hyperinsulinaemia, as a result of insulin resistance in classical metabolic tissues, which has been identified as a highly significant risk factor to progression of prostate and other cancers [14]. In prostate cancer, elevated insulin or C-peptide levels (used as a normalised surrogate) have recently been shown to significantly correlate with high-grade prostate cancer and worse patient prognosis [16, 31–36], more significantly than BMI alone, suggesting that at least part of the effect of increased BMI on prostate cancer mortality is related to coincident hyperinsulinaemia........

(excessively sarcastic comment about our health advisers deleted! I need to censor myself more often! )

Cashless,

Do you think a ketosis-based low carbohydrate diet would accomplish the same thing? Many would advocate that certain fruits such as blueberries and grapes have significant angiogenic properties. However, based on your results, the insulin response caused by fruit outweighs the benefit.

In other words, is the only benefit your diet is accomplishing is suppressing the insulin spike and would a simpler low-carbohydrate diet accomplish the same thing?

Still impressed with how stable your PSA is with a controlled diet.

Paul

AK,

From a cancer diet/overall health standpoint I had issues with all
other nuts, some minor, some more serious . . . cashews have more
carbs, almonds more iron . . . so give me a short list of nuts that you
enjoy and I'll give you feedback.

PDL,

My PSA numbers are even closer than they look.
0.461, 0.448, 0.455, 0.447, 0.483, 0.458, 0.439
The 0.483 value had 2-3X the fruit of the first 4.
The last two had 1/2 the fruit, and then zero fruit.
The numbers are totally consistent with expectations.
If I kept the fruit constant, I feel that I would have a
reasonable estimate of the test "noise". The last two
are true regression, since they are coming off the
0.483 value by 2-3X the noise estimate.

I can give you my view on a ketosis-based low carbohydrate diet.
I can not prove it. I can support it, but will not, since my years old study
although sufficient for me to drop the idea, was not sufficient to formally
make the case. I'll just say it may work for a while, but it will not be sustainable.
My main concern was with arachidonic acid, and the 5-lipoxygenase and 5-HETE
pathways. I believe they "prepare the soil" for PCa bone invasion, cause inflammation,
and interferes with cancer cell death (apoptosis); in that order. Also, the iron content
of red meat is too high. Search iron and prostate cancer. We covered that in Part I.

My diet is an anti-angiogenic diet. Berries are ok, just not for breakfast nor snacks.
I have some, not many, after dinner. As for breakfast, you are correct that the
insulin response caused by fruit outweighs the benefit.

<< In other words, is the only benefit your diet is accomplishing is suppressing the
insulin spike and would a simpler low-carbohydrate diet accomplish the same thing? >>

If you are equating "a simpler low-carbohydrate diet" with "meat" then my answer
above applies.

As for "is the only benefit your diet is accomplishing is suppressing the insulin spike . . ."
Insulin and iron appear to be the major drivers of cancer progression. Simplicity is
wonderful if it works.

Cashless