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LIFESTYLE RISK FACTORS
As Director of
Research at Psyche Nutrition Sciences (PNSI-Inc),
it first became clear to me that nutrition and
lifestyle were major risk factors for cancer
more than any other preventable factors in 2003.
How do we know that diet and lifestyle are the
leading causes of prostate cancer? By looking to
the East where the incidence is low, and
dietary, lifestyle, and environmental factors
are different. European and Asian immigrants
adopting our way of eating and living increase
their incidence of developing prostate cancer.
This validates the idea that heredity plays a
minor role in cancer because if genetics were
the main cause, then immigrants would enjoy a
lower incidence regardless of their newly
adopted Western malnutrition and inactive and
stress-management-barren lifestyle. More data
supporting diet as a principle cause was found
when researchers examined Easterners who adopted
our diet in their native land. They found that
people living in countries with a relatively low
incidence of prostate cancer who adopt a more
Western diet and lifestyle showed a higher
incidence of prostate cancer.
So, what is wrong
with our diet? We have a big deficiency of
plant-based whole foods as well as an excess of
processed foods and additives, protein,
beverages, and supplements. Just as the
sugar-substitute mania has not reduced the
incidence of obesity, with fake and nonnutritive
sugars such as Splenda, NutraSweet and Equal,
the supplement explosion of recent decades has
not decreased the risk of prostate cancer. In
fact, there is no proof that vitamin and herbal
supplements reduce prostate cancer risk. The
only thing certain is that overusing supplements
can result in side effects, and in some cases,
disease and death. Folic acid supplements have
been linked with colon cancer, and lycopene
supplements have been linked with prostate
cancer. Supplements may have merely
provided a false sense of healthful security,
enabling people to skip out on eating healthful
minimally processed produce. We also may have
been putting soy on an unjustifiable pedestal
and been blind to other major differences
between Asian and American dietary habits, such
as the marked difference in amount of freshly
steeped green tea consumption. Americans drink
more canned and decaf tea, which are weak in, or
void of, body-cleaning antioxidants. You can
Americanize tea by freshly steeping green,
black, white, or red tea (preferably organic)
and pouring it over ice with a splash of organic
apple juice—something we call TAPPLE. We also
eat much more processed food, red meat, products
made from flour and sugar, and much less
produce.
When high-energy
meals low in antioxidants and meals high in
saturated fat, protein, dairy, and partially
hydrogenated seed oils like canola, corn, soy,
and olive, as well as fried and darkened foods
are consumed over time, genetic damage from
excessive free-radical formation or body
pollution is thought to trigger prostate cells
to begin replicating at a rapid cancerous rate.
Let’s take a look
at some foods that can be placed onto a
continuum regarding prostate cancer prevention.
Eating certain foods regularly and over time
increases the risk of developing prostate
cancer. Foods and supplements that increase the
risk of developing prostate cancer are called
promoters. BRIGHTFOODS, at the other end of the
spectrum, can decrease the risk. Medicinal foods
that reduce risk are referred to as protectors.
For our purposes, if a food or nutrient has
insufficient data linking it to prostate cancer
protection, it will be considered a promoter.
Foods are not permitted to sit on the fence here
and are, therefore, classified either as part of
the problem or solution. Sugar substitutes, for
example, are not linked to cancer production,
but because they are also clearly known to have
no cancer-prevention properties, they are
considered prostate cancer promoters by our
standards.
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