The Prostate

[Guest guest]

The Prostate

By Francisco Contreras, MD

(Health Ambassador, June 1998)

 

 

http://www.oasisofhope.com/resources/article4.htm

 

Do you remember when it was believed that a woman shouldn’t even be touched by

the “petal” of a rose. For the longest time, society was looking out for women,

the mothers, the housewives, and the widows, the gender known as the weaker sex.

Weaker? Things have changed, and women proudly say: “We’ve come a long way

baby!”

 

Definitively, things have changed. If there is such a thing as a weaker sex, man

could fit the description much better. We have become a shadow of what we used

to be, as Paul McCartney so accurately said in his hit song “Yesterday,”

“Suddenly, I’m just half the man I used to be.” Virility, maleness and the human

race itself are in danger of extinction under the threat of estrogen dominance.

Men are only a shadow of what we used to be. The average male of today is only

capable of producing half of the sperm the average male of 25 years ago would.

Every year, the average male’s sperm count is dropping by 2%! The symbol, or to

use a more cybernetic term, the icon of masculinity has been humiliatingly

affected, the size of our sexual organ has significantly diminished!

Aberrations and sexual malformations have reached rates never before seen.

Benign Prostatc Hypertrophy (BPH) after age 45 is almost a given and the

incidence of testicular cancer has quadrupled. Maleness is at risk. To

make it even worse, we are plagued with something as dreadful as PMS, BPH or

Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy. The ubiquitous BPH, as I mentioned in the

editorial, is humiliating man allover the industrialized world.

 

Starting at about age 30, the prostate cells alongside the urethra start to

multiply. If this continues, they can pinch off the urethra, causing a poor

urinary stream, dribbling, pressure, and, ultimately, infection and kidney

damage. Irritation of the urethra causes the urge to urinate and repeated

nighttime trips to the bathroom. It does not take much prostate growth before

the urinary symptoms begin and it can progress to complete obstruction of the

urethra causing a surgical emergency that threatens the life of the individual.

 

Doctors sometimes prescribe drugs to relax the pressure in the prostate or to

block the hormones that lead to enlargement. Finasteride (Proscar) is in the

latter category. It shrinks the prostate and is well tolerated. In more severe

cases, urologists remove a bit of prostate tissue, which, with modern

techniques, can be done through the penis. The operation is called transurethral

resection of the prostate (TURP), also known as “the roto ruter,” and is very

commonly done. In some cases, a simpler procedure works, making only small

incisions in the prostate (transurethral incision of the prostate, or TUIP). A

researcher named Burhenne developed a balloon device for dilating the prostate

(transurethral balloon dilation of the prostate, TUDP). Similarly, other

researchers are trying out a transurethral laser-induced prostatectomy (TULIP).

Balloon and laser procedures are still experimental.

 

Although male readers have undoubtedly crossed their legs in fear by this point

in the discussion, relax, if you take advantage of the information below, most

of these scary procedures can be avoided!

 

BPH is not cancer because these cells will not invade neighboring tissues or

spread to other organs. But there is no doubt that BPH importantly increases the

risk of developing prostate cancer. The cause for concern is well founded.

 

Since 1990 the reported number of new cases of prostate cancer has tripled, from

fewer than 100,000 annually to an estimated 317,100 this year. In the past 12

years, the incidence of prostate cancer has increased by 500%, and deaths from

the disease have escalated by 40%. If these trends continue over the next 30

years, we can expect the current number of new cases and deaths due to prostate

cancer to double. Data indicate that 1 of every 10 men will develop prostate

cancer by age 85 years.

 

As if the threat of prostate cancer was no sufficient, men also have to guard

from an industry that is after us as a market. There is quite a bit of confusion

in the medical community as to what to make of this cancer, some believe that

the death rate is actually increased largely the result of the introduction of

tests. Beginning in the late 1980s, the Prostatic Specific Antigen was

introduced, a blood test that can signal the presence of previously undetectable

cancer. It seems a desirable goal to detect prostate cancer at early stages in

order to provide curative treatment but even the establishment accepts that

cancer of the prostate is a benign malignancy of which men die with rather than

of.

 

Assuming that a prostate cancer, once detected, is both dangerous and still

potentially curable, there remains considerable controversy about how to treat

it. The three best understood alternatives are:

- Surgical prostatectomy

- External irradiation

 

" Watchful waiting "

 

Radical prostatectomy has been used to treat prostate cancer since 1903. Since

1984 the number of operations performed each year has increased more than

sixfold, with an estimated 160,000 done in 1995. The immediate price a patient

pays for this approved treatment is a major operation with a stay in the

hospital and an extended recovery.

 

The medical establishment is struggling with the reality that prostate surgery

can cause a lot of problems, at least in the short term, but more disappointing

is the terribly high post-surgical cancer relapse rate (in the US between 62 and

75% even when top surgeons perform the operations). Because the numbers are so

far from the “Gold Standard” that they have been trumpeting for many years, many

men have, as well they should, consider alternatives that oncologists disapprove

even though they realize that prostate cancer often advances very slowly.

 

Such major surgery takes a big toll; 6-8 weeks recovery, along with longer-term

side effects that may include several months of urinary stress, plus the reduced

quality of life and high percentage of incontinence (up to 33%) and impotence

(up to 66%), even in the hands of experienced surgeons. This approach does not

appear to be a great choice, especially when most patients live many years

whether they have surgery or not, and some researchers believe that surgery does

not always change the long-term odds very much. And they don’t even consider

that the prostate is the source of a mans vitality, his creative and sexual

drive/energy.

 

External irradiation has its own risks, including diarrhea from

radiation-induced inflammation of the rectum in the short term and chronic

radiation injury to the rectum and gradual decline of sexual function over the

long term.

 

Watchful waiting, the most conservative option, avoids treatment-related risks,

Such patients should expect to need palliative treatment, including hormones or

radiotherapy, if, and that is a big if, the cancer progresses. Some studies have

suggested that no treatment results in survival rates equal to those of surgery

or of radiation.

 

“At a time when clinical decisions are becoming highly standardized, in most

areas of medicine they are still complex and confusing in many areas of prostate

cancer management… ” says L.A. McKeown, in his article High Retreatment Rates

Shown After Prostate Removal (Medical Tribune, March 21, 1996), moreover, he

continues, “The benefit of one treatment over another (or sometimes over

watchful waiting) has not been precisely determined by randomised prospective

trials. Recent practice surveys have shown that the management of this disease

(by basic scientific standards) is unacceptably disparate, leaving some patients

undertreated or overtreated. The negative impact of this situation on the

quality and cost effectiveness of care is obvious.”

 

What is the meaning of all this? In short, men who need treatment for prostate

cancer can't be helped, and those who can be helped don't need treatment

 

Orthodox and unorthodox are in agreement, believe it or not, in one thing:

prevention. Nevertheless, they clash strongly as far as what prevention means

and how to approach it. The biggest obstacle to prevention is that most

scientific institutions are convinced that no known prevention strategy for

cancer of the prostate exists, and that no effective therapy is available for

patients with advanced tumors. If prevention is impossible, what are scientists

doing to prevent? Prestigious medical institutions and their sophisticated,

highly educated health professionals accept —and promote— early detection as

prevention.

 

Today nearly two thirds of prostate cancers detected in screening programs and

treated surgically are confined to the gland and can thus be eradicated by

surgery or radiation. For such reasons, both the American Cancer Society and the

American Urological Association currently recommend that healthy men older than

50 years who have a life expectancy of at least 10 years undergo both rectal

examination and PSA (a highly immunogenic glycoprotein produced solely by the

prostate) testing annually.

 

With this twist in the concept of prevention, strategies for reducing the

incidence of prostate cancer, are an important focus for research funds. For

instance, the phase III Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT), a

chemoprevention clinical trial, has been approved by the National Cancer

Institute (NCI). The PCPT is a 7-year randomized placebo-controlled trial that

will test whether reducing levels of dihydrotestosterone (DHT) by means of

finasteride (ProscarTM), a 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor, will result in a

reduction in the prevalence of prostate cancer. Scientific evidence for this

hypothesis is circumstantial at best, with no proof that the pathogenesis of the

disease can be affected by the manipulation of DHT. Their review also discusses

the use of digital rectal examination, transrectal ultrasonography, and

prostate-specific antigen (PSA) concentration in the diagnosis of prostate

cancer. Nevertheless, this clinical trial is an important first step.

 

When Benjamin Franklin said that an ounce of prevention was better than a pound

of cure, he didn’t count on the cleverness of marketing strategies. If money can

be made in the prevention process, why not attach a procedure ($) to it? A

doctor’s ($) visit for a digital anal examination, a drug and a PSA ($) that can

save lives because the earlier you find a tumor the better probability of

curative treatment ($$$).

 

But early detection is under fire even by the conventional community. PSA

testing has revolutionized our understanding of prostate cancer and led to a

dramatic increase in its detection… with a high probability of cure. Robert F.

Carretta, MD, FACNP, Director of the department of Nuclear Medicine, Roseville

Hospital, Roseville, Calif. In his article Prostate Cancer: How Do We Diagnose

It? Whom Do We Treat? Do We Make a Difference? Questions that assumption: “such

screening, and the treatment of tumors once detected, remains among the most

controversial subjects in medicine. Appropriate studies to determine the value

of PSA testing in reducing the overall rate of death from prostate cancer-or in

extending life in general (given that so many prostate patients die of other

causes)-have simply not been done.

 

Many physicians, policymakers and patients are questioning the wisdom of

widespread PSA screening. In addition to the billions of dollars required for

universal screening and subsequent potential treatment, they are deterred by the

fact that no one actually knows whether such testing would benefit the average

man or reduce overall mortality for the population as a whole, because there is

no unequivocal evidence that early detection through periodic screening with PSA

measurements (or rectal examinations, for that matter) in fact reduces the

chances of death from prostate cancer. The widespread use of PSA testing to

screen men with no symptoms of prostate cancer, then, could mean that many

tumors that would previously have had no effect on people's lives will now be

detected and treated at substantial costs in dollars and in suffering

 

Recent studies have suggested that scientific evidence is not currently

sufficient to allow prostate cancer patients (with localized disease) and their

physicians to make informed choices about radical prostatectomy, radiation

therapy, or watchful waiting. Differences in survival rates among these three

options do not appear significant.

 

Even though the concept of early detection sounds promising, at least to a

degree, I’m reminded by the unsophisticated words from my unschooled grandma who

said, if you detect it, you sure didn’t prevent it.

 

I, with many others, am of the conviction that prostate cancer and many other

malignancies, can be prevented, avoided, even eradicated. So much money, effort

and brains were spent in private and public research about the wonders of diet

and exercise, it is only fitting that everybody should proclaim the powerful

virtues of going back to nature and God’s plan for the prevention of disease,

not only cancer. We will find in scripture the ultimate health plan, a plan used

by many, I just hope that Christians begin apply in their lifestyles.

 

After so much knowledge and science has been gathered on the subject of

prevention through lifestyle changes, its sad that the medical industry has not

acted forcefully to encourage people to really prevent by promoting these

changes.

 

These problems are not inevitable. They depend in part on what men eat. Like so

many other parts of our biology, the mixture of nutrients we choose every day

can encourage prostate cells to grow into an aggravating mass or can help them

stay put.

 

A comparison of different countries is revealing. In Asia and Latin America,

latent cancers are much rarer than they are in the United States or Western

Europe. Moreover, the risk of these cells growing into invasive or spreading

tumors varies in precisely the same way. A man in Hong Kong has a 16 percent

likelihood of having latent cancer cells in his prostate after age 45, while a

Swede’s risk is double that figure, at 32 percent. And compared to a man in Hong

Kong, the Swede is eight times more likely to die of the disease.

 

Cancers are like weeds whose seeds blow from place to place. On moist, fertile

soil, they take root and grow uncontrollably. But if the soil is not watered or

fertilized, they lie dormant or even whither away. The Swedish diet makes the

male body fertile soil for cancer. Asian diets do not provide such welcoming

ground for cancer growth. No country has a perfect diet, but the trend is clear.

 

Countries with fatty, meaty diets have much higher cancer rates than countries

that use rice, other grains, beans, or vegetables as their staples.

 

Testosterone and related hormones stimulate prostate cancer cells like

fertilizer on weeds. The high-fat, meat-based diet boosts testosterone’s effects

and has been linked in many studies to high rates of prostate cancer.

 

Vegetarians and populations whose culinary traditions are based on rice, soy

products, or vegetables not only have lower cancer rates; they also have a far

lower risk of progression should cancer cells gain a foothold. The possibility

that survival for cancer patients may be improved to the extent that they adopt

a plant-based diet is bolstered further by the findings that vegetables and

fruits strengthen the immune cells that seek out and destroy cancer cells and

inhibit their spread.

 

Your Prostate Would Rather be a Vegetarian.

 

Foods can strongly influence sex hormones, including testosterone. Could it be

that cutting out meats and dairy products and adding more vegetables to our

plate could turn down the hormonal stimulation of the prostate and prevent

prostate problems? That is, in fact, exactly what researchers have found. Daily

meat consumption triples the risk of prostate enlargement. Regular milk

consumption doubles the risk and failing to consume vegetables regularly nearly

quadruples the risk. Prostate hyperplasia is reportedly increasing in Asian

countries, paralleling the westernization of the diet that has occurred in

recent decades. Much of this hormonal havoc is cause by the exaggerated amounts

of estrogen in the meat, milk and estrogen like substances found in pesticides

and plastics. Estrogen abundance neutralizes testosterone and plays an important

part in the hyperplasia of the prostate.

 

The meat-based diet that has become routine in Western countries and is now

spreading to other parts of the world encourages many hormone-related

conditions, and prostate enlargement is no exception. Even if you grew up as a

meat eater, your prostate would rather be a vegetarian.

 

Nutritional treatments for prostate enlargement are being explored by an

increasing number of practitioners. A treatment with Saw palmetto (Serenoa

repens, extracted from a type of palm tree and has been shown to prevent the

conversion of testosterone to DHT and to reduce prostate symptoms in clinical

tests.), zinc and wild yam (natural progesterone). These supplements together

with a mostly vegetarian diet, has proven to help patients with BHP. I also

recommend that patients avoid caffeine and keep alcohol consumption to a

minimum.

 

Between doing nothing (watchful waiting) and devastating aggressive treatments,

there are alternative options worth looking at. Of those patients which lives

are threatened with aggressive prostate cancers that have failed to conventional

treatment, there is still hope.

 

At the Oasis of Hope Hospital, we have conducted a prospective clinical trial

with more than 800 patients that were sent home to die because they had failed

to all forms of orthodox therapies. We offered our alternative MT. My father,

DR. ECR, first developed this therapy in the late 60’s. It consists of a diet

high in complex carbohydrates, low in animal protein and very low in animal fat,

in other words, a diet very similar to those cultures that have a very low

incidence of prostate cancer. A detox program. Provision of mega-dosages of

vitamins and minerals taken orally and I.V., antioxidating and carcinogen

neutralizing phytochemicals. Natural anti-tumor agents like Kemdaline (laetrile)

and Escuartol (a special type of shark cartilage). But the needs of the physical

body are not the only ones met. Spiritual and emotional deficiencies are also

addressed through bible studies, song and praise, prayer and yes, even laughter.

 

With this simple yet comprehensive program, 86% of the patients were alive, and

with excellent quality of life, five years later. Do not forget that those

patients were expected to die within 6 months!

 

I have refused to accept the premise that there is no prevention for cancer of

the prostate nor that patients with advanced stages of the disease are doomed.

But don’t take my word for it, the medical literature has plenty of information

about the effects of diet and alternative treatments. The results in early

stages of prostate cancer with surgery and /or radiation therapy are not as good

as they have been promoted. I urge patients and the medical community to

consider alternative therapies that do not deteriorate the patient’s quality of

life and offer them not only hope but life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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