Well this is interesting. I was doing some research on prostate cancer and ran across the American Cancer Society’s prostate cancer support forums. I decided to search for any mention of the Dean Ornish study where he reversed prostate cancer in a group of patients by putting them on a vegan diet, along with an exercise and mediation program. No posts on the subject came up, which surprised me, so I decided to make a post to share the information.
After posting my message, I decided to hang around and refresh the forums for a bit to see if anyone replied. I noticed that the post got deleted after 5 minutes. So I posted it again, and again the post got deleted after about five minutes. I haven’t received any warnings from the moderators, so I’m not sure what is going on.
Below is an exact replica of the post I made, which I happened to save to my clipboard before hitting the submit button:
PSA Levels Reduced With Intensive Lifestyle Changes – Ornish Study
I was poking through the forums and noticed that Dean Ornish’s studies on prostate cancer were not mentioned on these boards, which seems remarkable to me given that he reversed or halted prostate cancer in a group of 44 men. The study was published in the Journal of Urology, Vol. 174, 1065–1070, September 2005. You can find a free copy of the study online by searching for “INTENSIVE LIFESTYLE CHANGES MAY AFFECT THE PROGRESSION OF PROSTATE CANCER.”
Basically Ornish put a group of men on a whole food vegan diet, which eliminated as much saturated fat and cholesterol as possible from the diet. He also put them on an exercise regimen of 30 minutes of vigorous walking six days a week and three hours of mediation a week. He also had a control group that were ordered to follow their doctor’s advice. At the end of the trial, none of the 44 men in the experimental group had undergone treatment for the advancement of their disease and their average PSA score dropped from 6.23 to 5.98, which indicates a regression of the disease. In the control group of 49 men, 6 ended up undergoing treatment for advancement of their disease and their average PSA score increased from 6.36 to 6.74 (and the people who underwent treatment were not included in that average, otherwise it would have been much higher).
Another interesting side note, Ornish took blood from the participants and dripped it over a culture of prostate cancer cells. The growth of prostate cancer cells was inhibited almost 8 times more by serum from the experimental than from the control group. That’s 800% more cancer fighting power on the vegan diet. I’ve looked at other studies that suggest the diet+exercise combo is critical, because the exercise helps work the blood into the tumor structure where it can destroy the cancer cells. Ornish also found a relationship existed between compliance and results, so the people who better stuck to the diet and exercise plan had greater reductions in their PSA levels.
It is important to do your research on your own FIRST before radically changing your diet! Vegan diets require B12 supplementation and can produce massive changes in blood chemistry. People who are on insulin or taking blood pressure medications may hurt themselves because the diet can lower insulin resistance and blood pressure so much that medications may need to be lowered to compensate.
For people who are interested in learning more about treating their prostate cancer with a vegan diet, I highly recommend looking up the work done by Dr. Michael Greger, Dr. John McDougall, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Dr. T. Collin Campbell, Dr. Michael Klaper and Dr. Neal Barnard. All of them have numerous lectures on YouTube, most of them also have books published and have been featured in documentaries like “Forks Over Knives”.
A great resource for nutrition information is the website nutritionfacts.org. Several videos and articles cover all sorts of research linking prostate cancer to lifestyle, and the changes that can be made to prevent and reverse the disease.
Perhaps 3rd time’s the charm. Here’s a link to the 3rd post. I’m going to keep trying until I get banned or they say something.
Update: Just received this email from the mods:
Hello Michael,
I’m writing to let you know that I removed your most recent post to the Prostate discussion board. CSN doesn’t allow solicitation of any kind, no matter how worthy the cause may be (such asking members to vote for something or someone in a cancer-related cause).
Your post seemed to be primarily focused on sharing medical information and resources with other members. Are you a caregiver or a survivor or are you in a medical or scientific field? It is important that members who are active in the community share their personal experiences with one another. Many members are medical professionals or work in related fields, but we ask that they only wear their survivor and/or caregiver hat when in CSN. Members naturally share medical information and resources with one another, but CSN is not a medical site. Its primary purpose is offer a welcoming place for survivors and caregivers to share their personal experiences and practical tips and support one another.
Are you comfortable sharing your personal experience with cancer?
Best regards,
Lena
CSN Support Team
My emailed response:
Solicitation? What exactly do you think I’m soliciting? I’m trying to share a study that demonstrated a reversal of prostate cancer through diet. Do you think I’m a broccoli salesman or something? Don’t you think this kind of information might be worth sharing?
Update: Looks like they banned me for the OP. Here’s the latest message from the mods:
Hello michaelsuede,
I apologize for the multiple emails. CSN is a site for cancer survivors and cancer patients, as well as caregivers and for those affected by cancer. Members on this site do share nutritional information as well as information on their treatment and side effects and what to do about those side effects. The key here is that are writing in reference to their own experiences and the experiences of their loved ones. Your posts are informative, but come across as a solicitation, because you jumped right in with links and websites and shared nothing about how cancer has affected you. For this reason we have blocked your membership. I hope you understand, but our members are very sensitive to this.
Best regards,
Jeff
CSN Support Team
I guess that’s what you get when you try to tell people with prostate cancer where they can find information on how to treat it without first sharing “how cancer has affected you.” FYI, my grandpa recently died of complications from the disease. And people wonder why we have an epidemic of prostate cancer in this country. I’d be very leery of donating any money to the American Cancer Society given their behavior regarding diet related therapy advice.
A little info on prostate cancer: It’s the second leading cause of cancer related death among American men behind lung cancer. American men face 1 in 7 odds of developing prostate cancer, and a 1 in 38 chance of dying from it. In countries where meat and dairy consumption is low, the odds are massively reduced. Take this study from Japan for example:
Subjects completed a food-frequency questionnaire at baseline (1963, 1965 and/or 1979) and were followed for incident prostate cancer until the end of 1996. During this time, 196 incident prostate cancer cases were identified after 252,602 person-years of observation.
I remember seeing another study that was done prior to this one that showed ZERO incidences of prostate cancer in Japan on average for the entire country! Obviously this was prior to the introduction of the western diet prior to WWII.
Oh by the way, here’s an excellent article published by the UCSF Medical Center on diet and prostate cancer that covers numerous studies. It’s packed with great information. The only thing they get wrong is the fish for omega 3 recommendation, as the Japan study I noted above found a significant correlation between fish consumption and prostate cancer risk. Stick with walnuts or a few tablespoons of ground flax seed daily for your omega 3s.
