I want to share some thoughts on an interesting article that I read from Cornell University. I felt the article captured in a powerful way the essential need of proper diet and exercise.

In the course of writing articles for this column, I have focused on how diet and exercise can prevent heart attack and stroke. This column will highlight the benefit of diet on prostate cancer.

The incidence of prostate cancer worldwide is strongly associated with differences in diet and lifestyle. The amount of dietary fat, fiber, red meat consumption, antioxidants, micronutrients and obesity are all hypothesized to be responsible for the number of cases in different populations.

Small areas of prostate cancer cells are believed to exist in 30 percent of men older than 50 and 75 percent of men older than 80. These small areas are found in a fairly consistent way worldwide. It is highly likely that diet and lifestyle choices are important factors that influence the transformation of these early cancer cells into more aggressive, invasive prostate cancer.

Here in North America, men have almost double the risk of invasive prostate cancer compared to Western Europe and almost 10 times the risk of men in Japan.

Factors such as the high incidence of small cancer cells present, the number of years they are present and the likelihood of diet and lifestyle influence on cancer progression make prostate cancer a unique topic when considering prevention strategies.

Dietary factors may affect the way the small collections of cells are transformed from relatively harmless slow-growing cells into a more aggressive form. Lifestyle choices often affect the level of obesity, which can alter the balance of the internal testosterone production. A diet low in fat and high in fiber combined with exercise promotes an increase in sex hormone-binding globulin and a decrease in free testosterone levels. This can lead to decreased growth-promoting effects on the prostate. Obesity has been shown as an independent risk factor for high-grade prostate cancer and increased prostate cancer mortality. 

One Swedish study, which followed more than 2,400 cases of prostate cancer, found those who ate fish more than three times per week experienced half the risk of metastatic prostate cancer than those who ate fish only twice a month. 

American diets – high in saturated fat, hydrogenated vegetable oils and trans-fats – are one explanation of the connection between total fat and prostate cancer risk. Asian and Mediterranean diets have been shown to reduce the risk compared to the traditional American diet with its abundance of cholesterol, refined oil and unsaturated fats. Asian diets are high in phytoestrogens, which are steroid compounds found in soy foods. These substances, also known as isoflavones, can decrease the enzymes that produce testosterone, thus providing chemopreventive activity against advanced prostate cancer. 

Dietary factors can be categorized as macronutrients, foods/herbs and micronutrients. Macronutrients such as dietary fiber, dietary fat, carbohydrates, meat consumption all are important. Specific foods and herbs such as Saw Palmetto, ginger, tomato, pomegranate and soy should be included in a diet to decrease the risk of prostate cancer.