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Diet and Exercise Work in Slowing Prostate Cancer
Two thirds of prostate cancers found in senior
citizens
Aug. 11, 2005 - Men with early stage prostate
cancer – the second leading cause of cancer death in men - who make
intensive changes in diet and lifestyle may stop or perhaps even reverse
the progression of their illness, according to a new study. The chance
of having prostate cancer increases rapidly after age 50. About two
thirds of all prostate cancers are diagnosed in senior men over the age
of 65. It is still unclear why this increase with age occurs, according
to the American Cancer Society.
(See key
statistics on prostate cancer below news story.)
In this study, participants in the lifestyle-change
group were placed on a vegan diet (plant products) consisting primarily
of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes supplemented with soy,
vitamins and minerals. They participated in moderate aerobic exercise,
yoga/meditation, and a weekly support group session.
A registered dietitian was available for
consultation, and a nurse case manager contacted the participants once a
week for the first three months and weekly thereafter.
After one year, the researchers found that PSA
levels (a protein marker for prostate cancer) decreased in men in the
group who made comprehensive lifestyle changes but increased in the
comparison group.
There was a direct correlation between the degree
of lifestyle change and the changes in PSA. Also, they found that serum
from the participants inhibited prostate tumor growth in vitro by 70
percent in the lifestyle-change group but only 9 percent in the
comparison group. Again, there was a direct correlation between the
degree of lifestyle change and the inhibition of prostate tumor growth.
The research is the first randomized, controlled
trial showing that lifestyle changes may affect the progression of any
type of cancer. Study findings are published in the September issue of
the Journal of Urology.
The study was directed by Dean Ornish, MD, clinical
professor, and Peter Carroll, MD, chair of the Department of Urology,
both of the University of California, San Francisco, and the late
William Fair, MD, chief of urologic surgery and chair of urologic
oncology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
The research team studied 93 men with biopsy-proven
prostate cancer who had elected not to undergo conventional treatment
for reasons unrelated to this study. The participants were randomly
divided into either a group who were asked to make comprehensive changes
in diet and lifestyle or a comparison group who were not asked to do so.
None of the lifestyle-change participants had
conventional prostate cancer treatments such as surgery, radiation, or
chemotherapy during the study, but six members of the comparison group
underwent conventional treatments because their disease progressed.
Patients in the lifestyle-change group also reported marked improvements
in quality of life.
According to Carroll, "This study provides important new information for
men with prostate cancer and all men who hope to prevent it. This is the
first in a series of trials attempting to better identify the exact role
of diet and lifestyle in the prevention and treatment of prostate
cancer."
"Changes in diet and lifestyle that we found in
earlier research could reverse the progression of coronary heart disease
may also affect the progression of prostate cancer as well. These
findings suggest that men with prostate cancer who undergo conventional
treatments may also benefit from making comprehensive lifestyle
changes," said Ornish, who is also founder and president of the
non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute. "This adds new
evidence that changing diet and lifestyle may help to prevent prostate
cancer."
The researchers are continuing to follow these
patients to determine the effects of their changes in diet and lifestyle
on morbidity and mortality.
About the study
The research was funded by the Department of
Defense via the Henry Jackson Foundation, the Prostate Cancer
Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the UCSF Prostate Cancer
Specialized Program of Research Excellence, the Buckshaum Family
Foundation, Highmark, Inc., the Koch Foundation, the Ellison Foundation,
the Fisher Foundation, the Gallin Foundation, the Resnick Foundation,
the Safeway Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and the Wynn
Foundation.
American Cancer Society
What Are the Key Statistics About
Prostate Cancer?
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer,
excluding skin cancers, in American men. The American Cancer Society (ACS)
estimates that during 2005 about 232,090 new cases of prostate cancer
will be diagnosed in the United States. About 1 man in 6 will be
diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime, but only 1 man in 34
will die of this disease. A little over 1.8 million men in the United
States are survivors of prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of
cancer death in American men, exceeded only by lung cancer. The American
Cancer Society estimates that 30,350 men in the United States will die
of prostate cancer during 2005. Prostate cancer accounts for about 10%
of cancer-related deaths in men.
Among men diagnosed with prostate cancer, about 99%
survive at least 5 years, 92% survive at least 10 years, and 61% survive
at least 15 years. These figures include all stages and grades of
prostate cancer but do not account for men who die from other causes. In
other words, many of the men who died before 15 years, died from causes
other than prostate cancer. A recent review of death rates in men with
localized prostate cancer found that they had the nearly the same 5- and
10-year survival as men without prostate cancer.
Ninety percent of all prostate cancers are found in
the local and regional stages (local means it is still confined to the
prostate; regional means it has spread from the prostate to nearby
areas, but not to distant sites such as bone). The 5-year relative
survival rate for all of these men is nearly 100%.
Of the men whose prostate cancers have already
spread to distant parts of the body at the time of diagnosis, about 34%
will survive at least 5 years.
Five-year and 10-year survival rates refer to the
percentage of men who live at least 5 or 10 years after their prostate
cancer is first diagnosed. Relative (also known as disease-specific)
survival rates exclude patients dying of other diseases. This means that
anyone who died of another cause, such as heart disease, is not counted.
Because prostate cancer usually occurs in older men who often have other
health problems, relative survival rates are generally used to produce a
standard way of discussing prognosis (outlook for survival).
Unfortunately, it is impossible to have completely
up-to-date survival figures. To realistically measure 10-year survival
rates, we must have records of patients diagnosed at least 13 years ago.
We need 10 years of follow-up plus the time it takes to assemble the
data.
Modern methods of detection and treatment now mean
that prostate cancers are detected earlier and treated more effectively,
which has led to a yearly drop in death rate of about 3.5% in recent
years. This means that if you are diagnosed this year, your outlook is
probably better than the numbers above.
Prostate cancer occurs about 60% more often in
African-American men than in white American men. Compared with men of
other races, African-American men are more likely to be diagnosed at an
advanced stage. African-American men are more than twice as likely to
die of prostate cancer as white men. Prostate cancer occurs less
frequently in Asian men than in whites. Hispanic men develop prostate
cancer at similar rates as white men. The reasons for these racial
differences are not clear.
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