If you know a man, or are a man, you know how difficult it is to get them (or yourself) to take their health seriously. It’s like pulling teeth with men to be concerned about their health and to do anything about it.
For this post I want to talk about Prostate Cancer– one of the leading causes of death in men. All cancers are the number two killer of men in the United States, but prostate cancer is probably one of the ones men don’t like to discuss at all. It’s in a sensitive place for men, totally understandable. Please men, trust us (women) when we say we understand how uncomfortable and vulnerable it is to get your prostate checked. We go often to sit spread eagle in front of a doctor who spreads our vulva wide open just to scrape our insides whilst cooing, “you’re doing great, that wasn’t so bad was it?”
We get it.
It’s also interesting that there’s not much support on men’s health. Men are kind of pushed to the side when it comes to anything about supporting their physical or mental health. Also the amount of misinformation surrounding men’s health.
If you go to almost any health website you’ll see this regarding prostate cancer:
“While preventing prostate cancer may not be possible, early detection does save lives.”
It’s interesting because, it’s a lie.
Why are we lying to our men? Do we want them to not be healthy? I already know the answer to the questions.
Take a deep dive on your own when you’re in the mood and you’ll find out that a large majority of these “health” studies are, at the core, funded by what I like to call “The Big Bads.” The Big Bads are the meat industry, the dairy industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and the government. This post isn’t the place to discuss The Big Bads and how they are a big cesspool funding each other for the lesser good of humanity. Long story short, The Big Bads make money on humanity being ill and addicted–all of them do. I encourage you all to take the blind fold off and take a closer look.
Is prostate cancer preventable?
Much to the chagrin of the health and animal ag industry– yes, there are studies showing that prostate cancer is indeed preventable. There’s so much to get into, so let’s just start.
Some of the highest rates of prostate cancer is in the United States whilst some of the lowest are in Asia–historically. Why clarify? Because that’s also changing. South Korea has quickly risen their prostate cancer rates within recent decades. An 850% increase in fact.
What has changed?
Diet.
There’s an incredible book based on a 20 year study by one of my mentors, Dr. Campbell, that looked at the diet of 6,500 people in 65 different rural counties of China to determine if there was a relationship between diet and disease. The study shows that, yes there is a direct relationship between diet and health. So much so, that by the end of the 20 year study, researches had over 8,000 statistically significant associations between lifestyle, diet, and disease.
One of the things shown in the study was that all animal protein acts the same way on the human body. This is important to know because I know there are a lot of people that will say, “well I don’t eat red meat” or “I only eat chicken and turkey” “we only do goat and camel milk from the Alps because its healthier than cow milk.”
None of that matters and you’re just fooling yourself (not your cells) into thinking any of that. All animal protein acts the same on the human body. They are all most efficient at growing cells. They are the best at growing cells… Which means all cells, good and bad. Meaning whilst you’re growing healthy normal cells, you’re also turbo boosting those cancerous cells as well as turbo boosting insulin growth factors–which increases cancer production. We’re not even talking about people that only eat large amounts of meat either. The studies show that even the smallest amounts of animal protein were associated with adverse health.
Where are you supposed to get your protein from then?
Plants.
Plant protein does not affect the human body the same way animal proteins do. They do not turbo boost cell growth, which means cancerous cells are not being spawned at a lighting pace. In fact endless studies show that plants, a plant based diet, actually has a protective quality against cancer and other diseases.
Remember this is all animal protein. Anything that comes from an animal can limit your health and increase your cancer (and other diseases) risk.
A study showed that eating five eggs a week had a 47 percent increase in fatal prostate cancer. Most studies on prostate cancer show an increase risk with consumption of animal products and a decreased risk with consumption of plant products.
Foods that have been proven to prevent and manage prostate cancer are things like: tomatoes, brassicas (things in the broccoli family), and soy. Notice there is no animal product listed in the prevention or management list?
Foods that have been proven to increase the risk of prostate cancer: meat and dairy. Notice there is no plant product in this list?
If you’re a die hard animal ag supporter, I can already feel your heart racing and steam coming from your ears as you’re screaming in your head, or out loud at the screen:
BUT SOY!!! Soy is a hormone disrupter!!!!!!
(someone actually said this to me today, which is what led to this post. So thank you for the inspiration, I believe your name was Ashley, or something similarly overused in the 90’s.)
Take that deep dive! Deep dive into who funded those studies lying about soy being evil and harmful. It’ll come back that the meat and dairy industry funded them. Now look at who is the biggest user of soy in our country… The meat and dairy industry.
I’ll leave that for another post, but here I’ll continue with soy being protective against prostate cancer (and actually breast and ovarian cancer). Tofu and soy milk were shown to be the biggest protectors against cancer, whereas fermented soy like tempeh and miso didn’t show to have any protective qualities (this is because fermented foods are actually damaging to the gut and aren’t as protective as people claim them to be).
Studies show for men who have had surgery to remove it and radiation still benefit from eating a plant based diet, specifically those tomatoes and brassicas for this study. The average length of time it took for the tumor to grow back went from 22 months to 59 months, just by adding in more plants and removing more animal products. This was only after a three month dietary change. Imagine if you did a plant based diet for longer, or if you started with a plant based diet to prevent prostate cancer? What would the results be then? Well as we can see your risk of prostate cancer would just plummet.
Men with confirmed prostate cancer, can they benefit from a diet full of plants and no animal products? There’s no way eating plants can reduce the size of a cancer tumour or reverse it… right?
Incorrect. A study done by an incredible doctor, Dr. Ornish, showed that the control groups cancer continued to grow whilst the group of plant eater’s tumours shrunk down in size.
In fact, blood taken from a plant eater and dripped onto a petri dish of prostate cancer cells suppressed the prostate cancer growth eight times better than the control.
There is another prostate cancer study which showed that between a placebo group and a group that received broccoli, green tea, turmeric, and pomegranate (all powdered and put into a little pill), the placebo groups prostate specific antigen levels increased by 50%, whereas the plant powered pill group’s PSA didn’t increase at all (The PSA is what tells the cancer to grow). I’d be livid if I was in the placebo group.
Moral of the story, to protect against prostate cancer, cut out the meat and increase the plants! If you have a man in your life that you love, encourage them to read the facts and to seriously consider switching their diet. We need our men around, they are our rocks and deserve a shot at good health!
Men here are some signs you might want to get your prostate checked out:
- A need to urinate frequently, especially at night.
- Difficulty starting urination or holding back urine.
- Weak or interrupted flow of urine.
- Painful or burning urination.
- Difficulty in having an erection.
- Painful ejaculation.
- Blood in urine or semen.
- Frequent pain or stiffness in the lower back, hips, or upper thighs.
Yes, getting your prostate checked out is so uncomfortable and yes it is a very vulnerable position. Your mama, who loves you to pieces, was in multiple uncomfortable and vulnerable positions just to birth you into this world. Do it for her at the very least. No, it doesn’t make you any less of a man to get your prostate checked.
June is Men’s Health Awareness. Share with a man you love!