BLOGGERS: MARK SCHOLZ, MD & RALPH H. BLUM

The co-authors of Invasion of the Prostate Snatchers, blog alternate posts weekly. We invite you to post your comments.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Risk

BY RALPH BLUM

Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer in the U.S. affecting one in seven men. It is estimated that there are nearly 3 million American men currently living with prostate cancer and it is still not known what causes the disease. However, here are the main factors that might affect your risk level of risk.

Age
Age is the most significant risk factor. Your risk increases exponentially as you get older. In old age, up to 8 out of 10 men harbor microscopic amounts of the disease in their prostate, live with it, and die of something else. In the opinion of one well-known urologist, “If you are over seventy and you don’t have prostate cancer, chances are you’re a woman.”

A Family History of Cancer
Generally speaking if you have a father or brother who was diagnosed with prostate cancer you are twice as likely to develop the disease compared to the average man, while men with two or more relatives with the disease are nearly four times as likely to be diagnosed. If your relatives were diagnosed before the age of 60, this increases the risk slightly. And the younger the age at diagnosis, the more likely it is you have a faulty gene called BRCA2 in the family. Cutting edge research is ongoing to read and interpret the genetic code of prostate cancer.

Race & Ethnicity
Prostate cancer is more common in black Caribbean and black African men than in white or Asian men. The difference seems to be a mixture of inherited genes and environmental factors. African American men are 56% more likely to develop prostate cancer than Caucasian men, and nearly 2.5 times more likely to die from the disease.

Height & Body Weight
Research has shown that taller men have a higher risk of getting aggressive prostate cancer, or prostate cancer that has spread. And there are a number of studies confirming that men who overeat and who are overweight display increased incidence and aggressiveness of the disease.

IGF-1
Insulin growth factor is involved in the regulation of normal cell growth and death. Some studies have shown that men with a higher level of IGF-1 in the blood have a higher risk of developing prostate cancer. So it is not high blood sugar, but rather the high level of insulin triggered by high blood sugar that stimulates rapid cancer growth.

So what can you do to inhibit prostate cancer growth?  Unfortunately, the days of eating everything you want are over. There has never been a more important time in your life to eat sensibly.  Your diet can no longer be rich in animal fat, processed and fast food and low in fruit and vegetables. We did not evolve and develop to eat this way.  This doesn’t mean you can never have another piece of pizza.  But it does mean that having less than 10% of calories from animal protein can result in a dramatic reduction in cancer risk.

Bottom line, you are not without power in influencing your level prostate cancer risk.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

While I would agree that eating like we evolved to eat (like our Paleo ancestors), most of the studies we see are based on food recall surveys (in some cases a single survey of a 24 hour period determined if you were low or high protein for the rest of the years of the study).

Our Paleo ancestors also ate nose-to-tail and got more glycine that may have a direct impact on the ability of muscle protein and eggs to influence IGF-1. See Denise Minger's insight here: http://rawfoodsos.com/2014/03/09/new-animal-protein-study/