Prostate Cancer Symptoms Tips What is prostate cancer symptoms? We have tips about prostate cancer symptoms

Introduction

Many men are concerned about their prostate, especially the development of prostate cancer. Many sources tout the benefits of tomatoes in preventing prostate cancer in men. But is there sound medical research and studies that support this conclusion?

What Is In A Tomato

People who praise the benefits of tomatoes specifically point to the nutrient lycopene that is an antioxidant, as the key to preventing cancer.

Lycopene blocks free radicals that can damage the cells of your bodies. Some scientific studies have determined that people, who consume foods such as tomatoes that have lycopene, have a lower risk of cancer, especially prostate cancer.

Studies

Journal of the National Cancer Institute - In 2005 the Journal of the National Cancer Institute reported that the frequent consumption of tomato-based products could be connected with a reduced risk of prostate cancer.

The study appeared not to be very well controlled because it looked at men who were of Caucasian ancestry and Southern European descent who frequently consumed tomato based products. Based on this they concluded that a diet rich in tomato products reduced the chances of men developing prostate cancer.

But the report goes on to say that lycopene has not been proven to be the main ingredient that reduces your chances of developing prostate cancer. Plus the way I read the study, it was not well controlled, these men also drank a lot of red wine, which also could account for the decrease in prostate cancer.

National Cancer Institute and Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research - A study by the National Cancer Institute and Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research found that eating tomatoes had little if no effect on preventing cancer.

The American Cancer Institute is now saying that these studies are showing that men should focus on a healthy diet rather thank focusing on consuming a certain nutrient like lycopene.

American Cancer Society - A report out by the American Cancer Society says that some studies have shown a reduction in certain types of cancers, but other studies have not shown the same result and more research and study is needed.

They go on to say that a single nutrient may not be the key, but a diet rich in vegetables and fruits, that has many nutrients that when combined together, reduce the chances of you getting prostate cancer.

Conclusion

Though various studies have shown that eating a diet rich in tomatoes reduces your development of cancer, other studies have shown they have little to no effect. The current thinking is that to help reduce your chances of prostate cancer, you should eat a diet that is rich in all fruits and vegetables.

Jim Chase was diagnosed with an enlarged prostate when he was 56 and has done a lot of research to deal with this condition. To learn more about your prostate and how to keep yours healthy, visit http://www.squidoo.com/enlarged-prostate.

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It seems that there are a lot of different risk factors for getting prostate cancer. Among some of the most popular are: genetic predisposition, being of African descent, eating red meat, smoking, drinking too much alcohol, eating dairy products and having too many different sex partners. (If you are a Black male with a lot of sex partners I'd cut back on my dairy.)

Just when it seems like there's not much left that's tasty or fun, the American Journal of Epidemiology has added one more to the list. Men who eat fish are 2.5 times more likely to develop aggressive prostate cancer. Admittedly, giving up fish isn't as tough as most of the other things on the above list, but we always thought fish was good for us. Isn't it supposed to be brain food or something?

Researchers from Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center did a prostate cancer study on 19,000 men age 55 and up. After a few years they tested a subset of 3,000 of them and discovered that the men who had developed an aggressive form of prostate cancer also had the highest levels of DHA (an omega 3 fatty acid). This was shocking to them in that they expected a higher level of omega 3 might even protect against cancer. If it didn't prevent cancer they certainly didn't expect it to cause cancer. The men with the highest levels of DHA had a much higher incidence of this disease. Not only did they have prostate cancer but an aggressive form of it. The kind that kills you quickly. It was also interesting to note that very few of the subjects took omega 3 supplements. Most of them got it from eating fish.

If you Google "Omega 3 prostate cancer fish" it's all over the web. Eating fish increases your risk of getting an aggressive form of prostate cancer by a significant amount. The results are in. The good news is that fish still make excellent fertilizer in your garden.

This is a good time to make a disclaimer. I'm not a doctor. It's been so long since I've gotten my degree in Biology that I'm probably not even a good scientist. I'm a Caveman. However, something here seemed fishy to me. I do know that cavemen ate fish. To suddenly find out that fish are bad for us just seems counter-intuitive, so I did a little digging.

This study didn't start out to be about omega 3 at all. The omega 3 findings were anecdotal. It was an experiment sponsored by a major drug company that sells finasteride. Finasteride is a drug that is synthesized from progestrone (a female hormone) that shrinks enlarged prostates and promotes hair growth on aging balding men. The drug company sponsored this study in the hopes that their drug might also prevent prostate cancer. How cool would that be? A pill so that you don't have to get up at night to pee, prevents prostate cancer and even grows your hair back.

All 19,000 men at the beginning of this study and all 3,000 that were eventually tested for prostate cancer had been taking finasteride. As a Caveman, here is what I would draw as a conclusion from this study: Most of them could sleep through the night without getting up to urinate, most were hairier, a few that ate fish developed aggressive prostate cancer.

I think the only logical conclusion one can draw from this study is that it isn't a good idea for men to eat both fish and finasterides.

So, can eating fish give you aggressive prostate cancer? Maybe. Maybe not. Because it's so hard to check for caveman prostate cancer in the fossil records, we need to do more research.

Kittredge Kymla has a BS in Biology, Chemistry and Physics from Wayne State University. He writes about the Paleo diet and caveperson lifestyle. For a collection of recipes and caveman lifestyle articles, all glued together with a little humor, please visit http://cavemanhomecompanion.com/.

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