There is no evidence that anything you do or don't eat will affect your
PCa in any way. World class athletes, strict vegans, and fat slobs, all get
it. Sorry. Go out and live your life to the fullest everyday. Get
traditional treatment, and there's a really good chance you'll die of
something else.

I sometimes eat fish, sometimes pork, sometimes lamb, and rarely venison.
But, I usually eat beef.  I eat American, Mexican and Chinese cuisine.  I
eat less ice cream, syrup, cake, pie, and pastries than I used to, but it
has nothing to do with PCa.

It is my considered belief that the amount of evidence regarding diet and
PCa does not come close to convincing me to spend the last couple years of
my life eating that which I don't enjoy.

However, I do exercise and watch my caloric intake for cardiovascular
purposes.

You're doing all you scientifically can to prevent your PC from surging,
but extra body fat still threatens us significantly in many other ways.

Now, about those charts . . .
A friend was ordered by the military to lose 50 pounds or go on the
career-threatening Fat Boy program, despite winning a body-building
contest, because the charts said he was overweight. His body fat was
dangerously *low*. Three docs have recently told me to lose weight
because of those stupid generic charts.  None of them even asked me to
take off my shirt. They're a bunch of chart-bound idiots. The next one
who says that gets an eyeful of my exercise physiology lab test results,
especially the body fat measurement (nothing like my friend's but a very
healthy level) and my very high bone density test result.

So the real question is . . . are you *actually* too fat? What or how
much we eat and how much we play or work out is no measure or accurate
predictor of obesity. If you ran 10 miles and loaded five tons of hay
every day but still ate more calories than you expend, you'll still gain
weight. A pinch-type body fat measurement is cheap and locally available
at any good gym; if you think the charts lie about your fat level, get
pinched. But you'll also see below that harmfully excess body fat can
conceal itself *in* muscle.

I could pinch more belly fat and love handle than I liked after months
of 8-10 hours a week in the gym working very hard, but it melted off in
a few weeks once I trained my body to run on fat, escalated my
elliptical cross-trainer workout intensity and frequency, and reached
for apples rather than peanut butter sandwiches (healthy only if not
excess calories). I didn't *want* to shed the muscle I had worked so
hard to put on.

Is your treadmill work done at a heart rate in *your* fat burning zone?
If not -- and you can determine that only by having your exercise
metabolism tested -- you're running on sugar rather than fat. And
realize that doing the
s a m e   o l d   e x e r c i s e   r o u t i n e
every day for more than about a month trains our bodies to find easy
(read: energy conserving) ways to do it. Varying our routines often
surprises our bodies and makes it work harder and train more
effectively. IOW, if something ain't working, try something different.

How well is your insulin system operating? Is your pancreas still
pumping out enough insulin, and are your cells responding properly to
it? If not, your metabolism, blood glucose and insulin levels, and fat
storage/retrieval systems are out of whack. How's your thyroid level?
Any good family physician can easily, quickly, non-invasively, and
cheaply test all these things.

There's recent evidence that people who naturally secrete more insulin
than most in response to high-glycemic-index foods lose weight four
times as rapidly on (your) low-glycemic-index diet as people who
naturally secrete less insulin. One's natural insulin secretion levels
in response to high glycemic loads is thus likely to affect whether thy
do better on low-carb vs low-fat diets. (JAMA, last week, as reported in
U.S. News & World Report, May 28, 2007.)

You're also apparently neglecting your body's primary fat furnace: its
muscles. That's where we burn the most calories, especially on a
round-the-clock basis. The same ever-increasing-resistance exercise that
builds muscle also builds bone -- another plus for ADT pts -- and helps
many other body functions such as balance. Weight control via only
aerobics leaves a lot to be desired.

And here's a possibility I'm gagging over: take the Glassman's advice
and go on Atkins!
It is often quite effective in the short term;
it works long term for the very few who stick to it;
last I heard our lipids, especially cholesterol, become much less
important with advancing age;
many people's cholesterol doesn't increase significantly on low-carb
diets; and
I'm under the impression that high cholesterol takes *many* years, maybe
decades, to harm us, whereas excess body fat, even if not obvious, can
be a far more immediate threat way beyond its obvious cardiovascular
problems.

Recent reports roundly condemn two of your situations in revealing
detail: excess weight and ADT. These reports lay out increasing alarm
and detail about the many health threats posed by both. You are right to
be concerned about both.

The ADT threat was posted by J in s.m.d.c. recently:
http://www.asco.org/
 Home  >  Education & Training  >  Educational Book  > 2007 Educational
Book
 Category: Genitourinary Cancer
Source: 2007 Educational Book
Author(s): Shehzad Basaria, MD
Manuscript Summary:

Overview: Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in men.
Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) has been traditionally employed in the
treatment of recurrent and metastatic disease. Recently, its use has
increased among patients with locoregional disease. Although its use as an
adjuvant therapy has resulted in improved survival for a subset of
patients, ADT has been associated with a multitude of endocrine
complications. Many such complications, such as osteoporosis, sexual
dysfunction, hot flashes, gynecomastia, and adverse body composition, are
well known to physicians and patients. Recently, metabolic complications,
such as insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, and metabolic syndrome, have
emerged and may be responsible for the increased cardiovascular mortality
seen in this patient population. In this article, metabolic complications
of ADT are reviewed.
Full Manuscript:
A PDF download of the full article is available to members only. Sign in.

The new findings on body fat's specific threats have been in the news
lately, and are related to inflammation even in slim people if they
conceal too much body fat in well-marbled lean body mass. Google body
fat inflammation to see how even lean-looking people, let alone the
obviously overweight, are threatened with thrombosis, diabetes, strokes,
and heart disease if their body fat generates inflammation.

As for Ornish PC diet . . . Google will reveal far more than we could
post here.

And I must ask: what else are you eating? Surely just fish and veggies
alone don't overwhelm your treadmill? Is all the fish fatty stuff like
salmon? Butter or tartar sauce? Haagen Daaz? Melon-sized avocados each day?

Fer starters.

I.P.

Bob wrote:

As others have mentioned, NO study had proven that certain diets/foods/fads
contribute to or reduce the risk of PCa.

I began adding weight just after I eliminated added salt from my diet in
1995.  Switched to fresh and frozen vegetables vs. canned. and stopped
pouring from the salt shaker at the table (except popcorn and fries).  I
gained 48 pounds, lost 30 the past 2 years, and have recently gained 12
back.

Also just recently read that the thyroid gland requires iodine to function
properly.  Now I have to ask my doctor at the next appointment if less use
of iodized salt would contribute to the weight gain.  Should also ask if
"ideal weight" is based on my original heighth or current heighth.  I've
lost 8 inches because of ankylosing spondylitis in the
spine/hips/neck/shoulders. My doctors and I are planning for a second hip
replacement this summer.  This time the right hip.  The left one was
replaced in 2000.

My diet consists of fish 2 or 3 times a week, with beef/pork/chicken other
days.  I may even have a bowl of oatmeal or grits for dinner rather than
prepare an elaborate meal.

Bob,

I don't know anything about the Ornish diet, but you left
one vital piece of information out of your above posting -
how many calories do you eat per day?

Even vegetarians can be overweight.  I know some that are
far more overweight than you are.  Exercise helps both by
burning calories directly and by keeping your metabolic
rate up.  But you have to eat fewer calories than you
use up in order to lose weight.

One thing I've found that takes off weight is eat little
or nothing for a long period each 24 hours.  If I want
to lose a few pounds, I can eat a small early dinner and
a late breakfast.  As I understand it, after a few hours
with no food, the body starts burning stored energy, e.g.,
fat.

This contradicts another approach I've seen advocated to
eat small meals frequently - which supposedly shrinks the
stomach.

But in any case, no matter how you slice it, the bottom
line is probably to eat fewer calories.

   Alan