Reversing Early-Stage Prostate Cancer Progression with a Plant-Based Diet and Lifestyle Program

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A plant-based lifestyle is put to the test against early and late-stage cancer

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Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.

Higher consumption of a healthy plant-based diet was significantly associated with a lower chance of having an elevated PSA, which can be a sign of prostate cancer. We’re talking about potentially cutting the odds of having an elevated PSA in half with diet. The researchers concluded: “This study provides strong evidence supporting the potential use of plant-based foods in the prevention and treatment of prostate cancer.”

Not so fast, replied an editor of the journal, noting this paper certainly doesn’t present final, convincing proof that reduced PSA levels due to a plant-based diet in fact translate into what we actually care about: less prostate cancer. Harvard cohort researchers took up the mantle to answer that question. And indeed, greater consumption of a healthful plant-based diet does appear to reduce the risk of getting prostate cancer and dying from prostate cancer by nearly half for men under age 65.

And those adhering more to a healthy plant-based diet who do get cancer had 90 percent lower odds of ending up with high-grade, more severe prostate cancer, and appeared to be better able to handle cancer treatment, and ended up with better sexual function, less incontinence, and more vitality.

This is consistent with the role of diet and nutrition in the prevention and treatment of cancer more generally, where the evidence points to a diet with minimal animal products. What if you already have cancer though? Study findings suggest that adhering to plant-based diets may be beneficial for overall cancer survival, and may potentially improve the prognosis for common cancers such as breast, colorectal, and prostate cancers.

It starts with case reports like this. A 73-year-old man with prostate cancer was placed on a plant-based diet, and within 10 days his tumor markers were down about 75 percent. But case reports are like glorified anecdotes. You can’t know if a healthier diet and lifestyle actually help until you run a randomized, controlled trial and put it to the test,

Dr. Dean Ornish, famous for showing the progression of heart disease could be reversed, opening up arteries without drugs, without surgery, just a plant-based diet and lifestyle program, eliminating angina chest pain in about three-quarters of patients within a matter of months. He decided to move from killer #1—heart disease—to killer # 2—cancer. In the study, 93 men with early-stage watch-and-wait prostate cancer were randomized to either standard care or a plant-based diet along with walking and relaxation.

The cancer tended to get worse in the control group, but comparatively better in the plant-based group. When blood from the patients on the standard diet was dripped onto prostate cancer cells growing in a petri dish, cancer cell growth rates were cut by 9 percent. Their bodies were doing the best they could to beat back the cancer. The blood of patients on the plant-based program, though, knocked down the cancer growth by 70 precent. Even living more healthfully made their blood stream almost eight times less hospitable to cancer. This was after a year. Subsequent studies have shown that one can see a significant cancer-fighting effect after less than two weeks on a similar Pritikin-style plant-based diet with exercise.

Ornish took biopsies from the prostate cancer patients before and after three months, and saw a significant change in the expression of more than 500 genes. You can see the subtle shift in gene regulation from more red to more green. The green denotes genes that are being downregulated under the lifestyle changes, before and after. Of course, what we really care about are disease outcomes. By the two-year follow-up, significantly more men in the control group had enough cancer progression that they had to go into treatment. For example, five had to get radical prostatectomies, which can lead to urinary incontinence and impotence in 60 percent, whereas none of the men in the lifestyle group was forced to go into surgery.

What about those with more serious disease? Researchers followed 10 patients with recurrent prostate cancer, meaning those whose invasive cancer had to be cut or burned out with radiation, yet their PSA levels started to rise again, signaling the cancer was back. There was no control group per se in this study. Each patient was kind of their own control before and after, being asked to center their diets around more whole plant foods. There was a significant decrease in the rate of PSA rise, suggesting a slowing of cancer growth. Out of 10 patients, four patients actually saw their PSA levels go down, suggesting the possibility of at least some degree of disease remission. And nine out of 10 had a reduction in their rates of PSA rise, as well as an improvement of their PSA doubling times, which is a proxy for how fast the tumor doubles in size. The increase in average doubling time went from about 12 months before the dietary change to 112 months, which is the largest that has ever been reported in any kind of dietary intervention trial for recurrent prostate cancer.

What about really advanced cancer, stage four with spread to distant organs? Out of nine patients willing to go on a plant-based macrobiotic diet, three men experienced long-term regression of multiple bone lesions, compared to no regression or healing in nine matched control subjects who continued eating the standard American diet. Those on the healthier diet went on to live an average of 19 years more, compared to those with the same severity of cancer not even living for 4 years more, on average, on their standard diet. Now this was not a randomized study, so maybe it says something about those willing to eat healthfully rather than healthful eating itself. But what’s the downside? As Dr. Ornish likes to say, the only side effects are good ones. A large number of patients with metastatic prostate cancer, for example, die not from their cancer, but rather from non-cancer causes, and the number one cause is heart disease, so a heart-healthy diet could only help.

Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.

Motion graphics by Avo Media

Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.

Higher consumption of a healthy plant-based diet was significantly associated with a lower chance of having an elevated PSA, which can be a sign of prostate cancer. We’re talking about potentially cutting the odds of having an elevated PSA in half with diet. The researchers concluded: “This study provides strong evidence supporting the potential use of plant-based foods in the prevention and treatment of prostate cancer.”

Not so fast, replied an editor of the journal, noting this paper certainly doesn’t present final, convincing proof that reduced PSA levels due to a plant-based diet in fact translate into what we actually care about: less prostate cancer. Harvard cohort researchers took up the mantle to answer that question. And indeed, greater consumption of a healthful plant-based diet does appear to reduce the risk of getting prostate cancer and dying from prostate cancer by nearly half for men under age 65.

And those adhering more to a healthy plant-based diet who do get cancer had 90 percent lower odds of ending up with high-grade, more severe prostate cancer, and appeared to be better able to handle cancer treatment, and ended up with better sexual function, less incontinence, and more vitality.

This is consistent with the role of diet and nutrition in the prevention and treatment of cancer more generally, where the evidence points to a diet with minimal animal products. What if you already have cancer though? Study findings suggest that adhering to plant-based diets may be beneficial for overall cancer survival, and may potentially improve the prognosis for common cancers such as breast, colorectal, and prostate cancers.

It starts with case reports like this. A 73-year-old man with prostate cancer was placed on a plant-based diet, and within 10 days his tumor markers were down about 75 percent. But case reports are like glorified anecdotes. You can’t know if a healthier diet and lifestyle actually help until you run a randomized, controlled trial and put it to the test,

Dr. Dean Ornish, famous for showing the progression of heart disease could be reversed, opening up arteries without drugs, without surgery, just a plant-based diet and lifestyle program, eliminating angina chest pain in about three-quarters of patients within a matter of months. He decided to move from killer #1—heart disease—to killer # 2—cancer. In the study, 93 men with early-stage watch-and-wait prostate cancer were randomized to either standard care or a plant-based diet along with walking and relaxation.

The cancer tended to get worse in the control group, but comparatively better in the plant-based group. When blood from the patients on the standard diet was dripped onto prostate cancer cells growing in a petri dish, cancer cell growth rates were cut by 9 percent. Their bodies were doing the best they could to beat back the cancer. The blood of patients on the plant-based program, though, knocked down the cancer growth by 70 precent. Even living more healthfully made their blood stream almost eight times less hospitable to cancer. This was after a year. Subsequent studies have shown that one can see a significant cancer-fighting effect after less than two weeks on a similar Pritikin-style plant-based diet with exercise.

Ornish took biopsies from the prostate cancer patients before and after three months, and saw a significant change in the expression of more than 500 genes. You can see the subtle shift in gene regulation from more red to more green. The green denotes genes that are being downregulated under the lifestyle changes, before and after. Of course, what we really care about are disease outcomes. By the two-year follow-up, significantly more men in the control group had enough cancer progression that they had to go into treatment. For example, five had to get radical prostatectomies, which can lead to urinary incontinence and impotence in 60 percent, whereas none of the men in the lifestyle group was forced to go into surgery.

What about those with more serious disease? Researchers followed 10 patients with recurrent prostate cancer, meaning those whose invasive cancer had to be cut or burned out with radiation, yet their PSA levels started to rise again, signaling the cancer was back. There was no control group per se in this study. Each patient was kind of their own control before and after, being asked to center their diets around more whole plant foods. There was a significant decrease in the rate of PSA rise, suggesting a slowing of cancer growth. Out of 10 patients, four patients actually saw their PSA levels go down, suggesting the possibility of at least some degree of disease remission. And nine out of 10 had a reduction in their rates of PSA rise, as well as an improvement of their PSA doubling times, which is a proxy for how fast the tumor doubles in size. The increase in average doubling time went from about 12 months before the dietary change to 112 months, which is the largest that has ever been reported in any kind of dietary intervention trial for recurrent prostate cancer.

What about really advanced cancer, stage four with spread to distant organs? Out of nine patients willing to go on a plant-based macrobiotic diet, three men experienced long-term regression of multiple bone lesions, compared to no regression or healing in nine matched control subjects who continued eating the standard American diet. Those on the healthier diet went on to live an average of 19 years more, compared to those with the same severity of cancer not even living for 4 years more, on average, on their standard diet. Now this was not a randomized study, so maybe it says something about those willing to eat healthfully rather than healthful eating itself. But what’s the downside? As Dr. Ornish likes to say, the only side effects are good ones. A large number of patients with metastatic prostate cancer, for example, die not from their cancer, but rather from non-cancer causes, and the number one cause is heart disease, so a heart-healthy diet could only help.

Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.

Motion graphics by Avo Media

Doctor's Note

For more on prostate cancer and diet, see:

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