Alan: I know of a retired OB/Gyn doctor with metastatic PCa.  He
had mets in multiple places in his bones.  He took PC-SPES and
had a remarkable turnaround.  He bought a lot before it was removed
from the market and is shortly going to run out.

So I decided to research PC-SPES and was a little dismayed at
what I found.  I read the actual lab reports from the FDA and from
the State of California and they were inconsistent.  They indicated
that some batches of PC-SPES were contaminated and others
weren't.  Those that were contaminated had trace amounts of
DES (diethylstilbestrol), a non-steroidal synthetic estrogen and
trace amounts of the blood thinner warfarin.  None of the tests that
I read showed anything more than traces of both.  Neither were
even close to a fraction of the therapeutic doses of either prescription
drug.  The DES found in each of the PC SPES lots was 1/30th (3%)
or less of the amount given to patients receiving DES pills.

The California Department of Health tested PC SPES in 1998 and so
did New Jersey Medical College for a study published in the New
England Journal of Medicine in 1998.  The FDA tested in 2000 and
al three tests were negative for DES.

Dr. Eric Small, an oncologist at University of Californa San Francisco
reported  that PC-SPES lowered PSA and shrank tumors in men
with advanced PCa.

But, the ongoing human clinical studies of PC-SPES that were
being done at UC-San Francisco and in Boston at Dana Farber
were showing very significant positive results for people with PCa.
Those studies were ended as soon as the trace amounts of DES
and warfarin were found.  There was some irony in the warfarin
because the herbs in PC-SES could cause some potential clotting
problems and some urologists who recommended PC-SPES to
their patients also suggested taking it with a baby aspirin.

While I see myself as being strongly committed to the scientific
method in healthcare and in the research and development of
drugs, I have grown increasingly cynical about how the drug
business is dominated by big business.

The trace drugs in PC-SPES could have been placed in some
batches by its makers.  The trace drugs in some batches could
have come from the herbs that the company bought in Shanghai
from a Chinese School of Medicine to use in making PC-SPES.
I don't know where they came from, but they were trace
amounts.  I understand how their presence both throws out all
scientific studies and meant that PC-SPES could no longer be
sold.  But, there were thousands of men and their uros who
reported (anecdotally, I know) significant improvement when
PC-SPES was taken.

All of that bothers me some.

I think this is sound reasoning for it makes sense to me.

It does feel good to have some sense of having at least some
control when facing PCa.

OCL

hi alan - i will try to answer your comments in between.

~ curtis
========PC-SPES turned out to contain prescription drugs (finasteride if I
remember correctly, but I'm not sure) So any positive effects of the
supplements in it were impossible to demonstrate. It's been withdrawn
because of the prescription drug contamination.
--------> i posted about a month or so ago - a biochemist - who took
PC-SPEC apart into it's individual parts.  i still have it any anyone
wants me to post it again.

=======I agree that slash or burn are the treatments of choice. But there's
still some question about whether supplements may help in a, well,
supplementary way.
----------> i personally think that supplements help in the way of
building the body up to make sure it gets the minerals and vitamins
needed to fight diseases.  but when one has a potential fatal disease
staring at them, then treatment should be sought and not diet concerns.
it would be like eating the right foods after you have colon cancer and
thinking that is going to make the colon cancer go away.....

==========and when one looks at the anatomy of the prostate, how can one possibly
believe that anything taken internal is going to get to it. the blood
supply is routed in such a way that it is hard to get to the source of
the problem. if one has prostatitis, the choice of drugs usually pass
through the kidneys, not the blood stream. this is just to get to the
infection. so, how can eating something that is suppose to be so toxic
to prostate cancer, that it wouldn't play havoc with the body in
general?

I hadn't heard this. I know that antibiotics and anti-inflammatories are
routinely prescribed for prostatitis, but they've never worked in my own
case. Do you know why they're still routinely prescribed? Are they
totally ineffective? Or do they sometimes work - in which case the drugs
DO get to the prostate.
----------> this answer is a mixture of many things.  i will try to keep
it straight and not sound like a flim flam man.  acute prostatitis
responds very good to antibiotics.  chronic does not.  when i had my
prostate taken out and opened up on the path table, they said that it
had both acute and chronic prostatitis in it, yet, i only had one
episode of prostatitis and it sent me to the ER room 6 years before the
RP.  

picture the prostate like a sponge.  now try to treat the sponge through
the blood system.  it stands a better chance of getting to the infection
through the urine tract because that is where the output openings are
and it can backwash into the acini.  drugs like levaquin are examples of
this.

also, one has to consider the blood-prostate barrier, a shield designed
to protect prostatic fluid.  the design of the shield is to keep the bad
bugs out like infections, but if the infection is also on the other side
of this shield, then the blood -prostate barrier is going to block the
antibiotic from getting through.

===========and if one looks at the choice of treatments for prostate cancer, it is
either removal, frying it or starving it. not a single choice of
treatment involves a diet as a "sole source of treatment".

As far as I know, this is 100% correct.
the closest thing someone might have to a positive experience would be a
slight reduction in psa, but not cure.

Right. But isn't that still a good thing?
If prostate cancer takes 10 years to kill you (Hank is still alive after
17 years), and if supplements gave you a 10% reduction in the rate of
growth of the cancer, that would translate to an extra year of life.
That's not a bad result for drinking a glass of juice or tea or taking a
pill once a day, especially if there are no side effects.
And what if, during that extra year, the cure is discovered?
--------> i definitely agree with you that any action is better than no
action.  i see the biggest problem with men who have been dx'ed with pca
that is quite curable, but instead of seeking a proven treatment, seek
out the nonconventional methods of treatments and then complain when
they are terminal.   i have no problem with a person who wants to do
this and it is their desire to do so.  i have a problem in the fact that
the information is not getting out to the general population to become
knowledgable enough to make a decision that is best for their situation
that will give them the best chance for survival and quality of life.

===========But for all that, I have to admit to being at least partly seduced by
the psychological benefit of supplements. Drinking my glass of tomato
juice and cup of tea each morning makes me feel like I'm doing
something. I feel like I'm fighting the SOB and not just passively
waiting for it to decide if it's going to kill me.
It's very possible I'm kidding myself. But it _seems_ better than doing
nothing.
        Alan
-------------> no alan, you are not kidding yourself.  you are taking
what actions you feel to help your body fight this disease off.  nothing
wrong with that.

now, for the new information of the day just to see how many people read
these posts.

question???  

what is a prostate infarction?   it's never been discussed at this
newsgroup since i've been here for almost 10 years.  you never hear
about it, yet, it would explain some things.

answer...........

a prostate infarction is like a myocardial infarction or heart attack.
it can trigger urinary retention, and also cause a temporary jump in psa
to go as high as 100 or 200.   also, studies by michigan scientists have
found that prostate infarctions may be responsible for high levels of
phosphatase as well.  

after the prostate infarction has passed, all these symptoms and levels
will return to normal.

so now, you know.............

knowledge is power - growing old is mandatory - growing wise is optional    
"Many more men die with prostate cancer than of it. Growing old is
invariably fatal. Prostate cancer is only sometimes so."
http://community.webtv.net/PALMER_ENT/doc

My history is as follows :
On 2/2/04, at age 65, had a psa of 4.7 during routine physical. Sent to
Uro who wanted to do biopsy immediatley. I decided to wait a few months
and on 9/13/04 psa was 7.6. Went on Cipro for 30 days and psa dropped
to 6.6. Had biopsy on 10/19/04. Results cancer right lobe in 2 of 6
cores - gleason 3+3 size < 1.0mm. Left lobe 6 cores clear of cancer.
Uro recommended surgery but I wanted to explore alternative treatments
first.

I changed my diet drastically and began supplements as I described
earlier. I also tried Budwig flaxseed oil and Wortman grape juice
programs. On 12/10/04 my psa was 7.0 and on 12/15/04 it was 9.0. I'm
getting scared now as I decided early on that I would use psa 10 as a
threshold for considering surgery or radiation.

I stopped the Budwig flaxseed oil and Wortman grape juice at this time
and made the following changes. Changed Vit E suppliment to mix with
300mg of gamma E. Began taking 1000mg of Genistein. Increased CoQ10 to
500mg and began taking it dissolved in green tea with 1 tablespoon of
olive oil. I also swallow the gamma E, selenium, and msm at the same
time. Since then my psa has been: 1/24/05 7.6; 3/1/05 5.7; 3/22/05 6.2;
4/22/05 4.1.

The only free psa I had done was the one that was 9.0. The free psa
then was 9.8%.Not good!

I have no way of knowing if the reduction of psa represents reduced
cancer or other things going on in the prostate. I know if it kept
going up my first concern would be more cancer. PSA is a poor indicator
of cancer because so many other things can effect it, but it is the
only easy indicator for me to follow.

If anyone is interested in CoQ10 check
http://www.newswithviews.com/howenstine/james2.htm

My next psa test is this month and I will post the results. Good or bad

Twig