Leading researchers to reveal comprehensive dos and don'ts for prost...( Lake Tahoe CA October 13 2007Today at...)

Lake Tahoe, CA, October 13, 2007Today at the Prostate Cancer Foundations Annual Scientific Retreat, researchers will share new findings on how eating common foods such as tomatoes and fish, maintaining a healthy weight, and avoiding meats cooked at high temperatures may help prevent prostate cancer, and help men live healthier and longer after diagnosis. One in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, and an estimated 218,890 cases will occur in The United States this year.

Since the 1980s, researchers have hypothesized that nutrition choices could be connected to prostate cancer. Today, those ideas are being substantiated by more widespread studies, in combination with newer technologies in gene research.

There are strong indicators in our research that diet and lifestyle are very important with this particular form of cancer, said Meir Stampfer, M.D., Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health. When we look at men from other cultures like in Asia, the rates of prostate cancer are significantly lower than in the U.S. Yet when these same men move here, within one generation, the rates increase very rapidly. We believe there is a clear correlation to how we live and eat.

June Chan, ScD, of the University of California San Francisco, has been studying the potential impact of fish oil and tomato extracts on the prostate gland prior to and after exposure. What were trying to determine is if men with low grade prostate cancer can manage their disease with these kinds of nutritional interventions and delay or avoid the need for more aggressive treatments, all of which carry a risk of side effects that can adversely affect physical function and quality of life, said Chan. In combination with other studies, the potential we see for these everyday supplements or foods to help men avoid or delay treatment is promising.

This type of approach, often deemed active surveillance,
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