prostate cancer

Would You Like Cancer With That Burger?

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Enjoy Your Cookouts Without Increasing Cancer Risk 

Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

Barbecue GatheringIt is July and backyard cookouts are in full swing. One question that you probably won’t hear from your host or hostess is “Would you like cancer with that burger?” But perhaps that is exactly the question they should be asking.

  • You probably didn’t really want to know that when fat from the meat hits the hot coals, carcinogens form that are deposited on the meat.
  • You probably also didn’t want to know that when you cook meat to high temperatures the amino acids in the meat combine to form cancer causing substances.
  • And you really didn’t want to know that a recent study showed that men who consume well-done red meat were ~60% more likely to develop advanced prostate cancer.

Would You Like Cancer With That Burger?

Grilled HamburgersA recent study compared 531 people ages 40-79 who had recently been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer with 527 matched controls. Both groups were asked about their dietary intake of meats, usual meat cooking methods and doneness of the meat.

The results were quite striking:

  • Increased consumption of hamburgers was associated with a 79% increased risk of advanced prostate cancer.
  • Increased consumption of processed meat was associated with a 57% increased risk of advanced prostate cancer.
  • Grilled red meat was associated with a 63% increased risk of advanced prostate cancer.
  • Well done red meat was associated with a 52% increased risk of advanced prostate cancer.

However, those percentages are a little bit difficult to compare, because “increased consumption” was defined relative to what the usual consumption or cooking practice was. So put another way, weekly consumption of…

  • 3 or more servings of red meat or…
  • 5 or more servings of processed meat or…
  • 1 or more servings of grilled or well-done red meat…

…were associated with a 50% increased risk of advanced prostate cancer.

In contrast, consumption of white meat was not associated with increased prostate cancer risk, no matter what the cooking method was used.

Enjoy Your Cookouts Without Increasing Cancer Risk

Grilled Chicken With VeggiesOur local newspaper recently carried some tips by Dr. Denise Snyder from the Duke University School of Nursing on how you could reduce the risk of giving your guests cancer the next time you are the chef at your backyard cookout.

Here are her suggestions:

  • Grill fruits and vegetables instead of meat. That was her idea, not mine. My editorial comment would be that grilling white meat (fish or chicken) may also be OK.
  • Use the lowest temperature that will cook your food thoroughly and keep the grill rack as high as possible.
  • Use a meat thermometer so that you can make sure that as soon as the meat is thoroughly cooked you remove it from the grill. We usually overcook the meat to make sure that it is done.
  • Shorten your grill time by microwaving the meat first, using thinner leaner cuts of meat or cutting up the meat and making kabobs.
  • Trim as much fat from the meat as possible before you cook it.
  • Line your grill rack with aluminum foil poked with holes. This allows the fat to drip down but minimizes the exposure of the meat to the carcinogens formed when the fat hits the coals.
  • Marinate your meats before grilling. That has been shown to reduce the formation of cancer-causing chemicals.
  • And, of course, avoid processed meats like hot dogs and sausage completely because they have been shown to increase the risk of cancer and diabetes no matter how they are cooked.

So, here’s to a healthier cookout. Bon appétit!

The Bottom Line

  1. You already knew that red meat and processed meats may increase your risk of cancer, but how you cook your red meat also matters. Grilling your meat and/or cooking it until it is well done appear to significantly increase your risk of developing advanced prostate cancer.

2) In contrast, consumption of white meat was not associated with increased cancer risk, no matter what the cooking method was used.

3) I have included several tips on how you can reduce the cancer risk associated with grilling red meats in the article above so you can enjoy both your cookouts and your health.

For more details about this study and what it means for you, read the article above.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Risk Factors of Prostate Cancer

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Vitamin D Deficiency?

Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

Vitamin D

Is vitamin D deficiency one of the risk factors of prostate cancer? What if something as simple as maintaining optimal vitamin D status could decrease your risk of prostate cancer? There is a lot of indirect evidence suggesting that vitamin D deficiency might affect your risk of developing prostate cancer. For example:

  • Prostate cancer incidence and vitamin D deficiency parallel each other. Both are highest in northern latitudes, in African American men, and in older men.
  • Prostate cancer mortality rates are highest for patients diagnosed in the winter and at Northern latitudes.

However, clinical studies looking at the correlation between 25-hydroxy vitamin D (the biologically active form of vitamin D in the blood) and prostate cancer incidence have been inconsistent. Because of this there has been considerable controversy in the scientific community as to whether or not there was any correlation between vitamin D deficiency and prostate cancer.

Vitamin D Deficiency and Cancer

That’s what makes the recent headlines suggesting that vitamin D is associated with decreased risk of aggressive prostate cancer so interesting. Does this study show low vitamin D to be one of the risk factors of prostate cancer? Have the conflicting data on vitamin D deficiency and prostate cancer finally been resolved or is this just another case of dueling headlines? Let’s start by looking at the study itself.

This study (Murphy et al, Clinical Cancer Research, 20: 2289-2299, 2014) enrolled 667 men, aged 40-79 (average age = 62), from five urology clinics in Chicago over a four year period. These were all men who were undergoing their first prostate biopsy because of elevated serum PSA levels or an abnormal DRE (that’s doctor talk for digital rectal exam – the least favorite part of every guy’s physical exam). The clinics also drew blood and measured each patient’s 25-hydroxy vitamin D level at the time of the prostate biopsy.

This study had a number of important strengths:

  • It was conducted at a northern latitude. Because of that 41.2% of the men in this study were vitamin D deficient (<20 ng/ml) and 15.7% were severely vitamin D deficient (<12 ng/ml). That’s important because you need a significant percentage of patients with vitamin D deficiency to have any chance of seeing an effect of vitamin D status on prostate cancer risk.
  • The study had equal numbers of African American and European American men. That’s important because African American men have significantly lower 25-hydroxy vitamin D status and significantly higher risk of prostate cancer than European American men.
  • All of the men enrolled in the study had elevated PSA levels or abnormal DREs. That’s important because it meant that all of the men enrolled in the study were at high risk of having prostate cancer. That made the correlation between vitamin D status and prostate cancer easier to detect.
  • This was the first study to correlate 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels with prostate biopsies at the time of biopsy. That’s important because it allowed the investigators to distinguish between aggressive tumors (which require immediate treatment and have a higher probability of mortality) and slow growing tumors (which may simply need to be monitored).

The results were pretty dramatic:

  • In African American men vitamin D deficiency (<20 ng/ml) was associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer diagnosis at time of biopsy.
  • In both European American and African American men severe vitamin D deficiency (<12 ng/ml) was associated with increased risk of aggressive prostate cancer diagnosis at time of biopsy.

The authors concluded: “Our work supports the hypothesis that 25-hydroxy vitamin D is a potential biomarker that plays a clinically significant role in prostate cancer, and it may be a useful modifiable risk factor in the disease”.

That’s “science speak” for “adequate vitamin D status may help prevent prostate cancer” or “low vitamin D may indeed be one of the risk factors of prostate cancer.”

VitaminD-smashes-cancer

Why Have Some Studies Failed To Find A Correlation Between Vitamin D Deficiency and Prostate Cancer?

The authors of the current study had an interesting hypothesis for why some previous studies have not seen an association between vitamin D status and prostate cancer risk. When you compare all of the previous studies, the strongest correlations between vitamin D deficiency and prostate cancer were the studies conducted at northern latitudes, in African American men, or focusing on aggressive prostate cancer as an end point.

That offers a few clues as to why other studies may have failed to find a link between vitamin D status and prostate cancer risk. For example:

  • The clue that the correlation between vitamin D deficiency and prostate cancer risk was strongest at northern latitudes and with African American men suggests that you need to have a significant percentage of subjects with deficient or very deficient levels of 25-hydroxy vitamin D before you can see a correlation. Other studies may have failed to show a correlation simply because most of the men in the study had normal vitamin D status.
  • The clue that the correlation is strongest for aggressive prostate cancer is more subtle. The authors hypothesized that prostate cancer develops over a lifetime. If that is the case, measuring vitamin D deficiency at the time of diagnosis may not represent the lifetime vitamin D status. The vitamin D status could have decreased because the men were older or had become overweight, or the vitamin D status could have changed simply because they moved from one geographical location to another.

In contrast, the progression from benign to aggressive prostate cancer is generally short term, so it would be affected by the most recent vitamin D status. If that is the case, then the vitamin D status measured at the time of diagnosis may more accurately reflect the vitamin D deficiency that affected the aggressiveness of the cancer.

 

The Bottom Line

1)     The latest study suggests that vitamin D deficiency (<20 ng/ml serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D) may significantly increase the risk of prostate cancer. The correlation between low vitamin D status and prostate cancer risk is strongest for African American men.

2)     The study also suggests that severe vitamin D deficiency (<12 ng/ml serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D) may significantly increase the risk of aggressive prostate cancer in both African American and European American men.

3)     This is a very well done study, and it is consistent with many, but not all, of the previous studies. Clearly more research needs to be done. Future research should be focused on high risk subjects and subjects with low vitamin D status so that the correlation between vitamin D status and prostate cancer risk can be adequately tested.

4)     This is another example of why I recommend that you have your serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D level measured on a regular basis and that you aim to keep it in the normal range (20-80 ng/ml). Some experts believe that 30-80 ng/ml is optimal.

5)     If you are African American, overweight, live in northern latitudes or it is winter, you may need supplemental vitamin D3. 1,000 – 4,000 IU/day of vitamin D3 is generally considered to be safe. If higher amounts are needed to normalize your 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels I recommend that you consult your physician for the appropriate dose.

 

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Does Grilled Meat Increase Prostate Cancer Risk?

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Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

 Want Cancer With That Burger?

 backyard-bbq

Its summer and you have most likely already visited a backyard bbq. One question that you probably won’t hear from your host or hostess is “Would you like some cancer with that burger?” But, perhaps that is exactly the question that they should be asking.

You probably already knew that red meat consumption may increase your risk of cancer. But, did you know that grilling that red meat may increase your risk of cancer even more?

  • You probably didn’t really want to know that when fat from the meat hits the hot coals, carcinogens form that are deposited on the meat.
  • You probably also didn’t want to know that when you cook meat to high temperatures the amino acids in the meat combine to form cancer causing substances.
  • And you really didn’t want to know that a recent study showed that people who consume well-done red meat were 60% more likely to develop advanced pancreatic cancer.

Does Grilled Meat Increase Prostate Cancer Risk?

This study compared 531 people ages 40-79 who had recently been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer with 527 matched controls. Both groups were asked about their dietary intake of meats, usual meat cooking methods and doneness of the meat.

The results were quite striking:

  • Increased consumption of hamburgers was associated with a 79% increased risk of advanced prostate cancer.
  • Increased consumption of processed meat was associated with a 57% increased risk of advanced prostate cancer.
  • Grilled red meat was associated with a 63% increased risk of advanced prostate cancer.
  • Well done red meat was associated with a 52% increased risk of advanced prostate cancer.

However, those percentages are a little bit difficult to compare, because “increased consumption” was defined relative to what the usual consumption or cooking practice was. So put another way, weekly consumption of…

  • 3 or more servings of red meat or…
  • 1.5 or more servings of processed meat or…
  • 1 or more servings of grilled or well done red meat…

…were associated with a 50% increased risk of advanced prostate cancer.

In contrast, consumption of white meat was not associated with increased cancer risk, no matter what the cooking method was used.

how-you-can-reduce-cancer-risk

Is It Possible To Enjoy Your Cookouts Without Increasing Cancer Risk?

Our local newspaper recently carried some tips by Dr. Denise Snyder from the Duke University School of Nursing in Durham, NC on how you could reduce the risk of giving your guests cancer the next time you are the chef at your backyard bbq.

Here are her suggestions:

  • Grill fruits and vegetables instead of meat. That was her idea, not mine. My editorial comment would be that grilling white meat (fish or chicken) is also OK.
  • Use the lowest temperature that will cook your food thoroughly and keep the grill rack as high as possible.
  • Use a meat thermometer so that you can make sure that as soon as the meat is thoroughly cooked you remove it from the grill. We usually overcook the meat to make sure that it is done.
  • Shorten your grill time by microwaving the meat first, using thinner leaner cuts of meat or cutting up the meat and making kabobs.
  • Trim as much fat from the meat as possible before you cook it.
  • Line your grill rack with aluminum foil poked with holes. This allows the fat to drip down but minimizes the exposure of the meat to the carcinogens formed when the fat hits the coals.
  • Marinate your meats before grilling. That has been shown to reduce the formation of cancer causing chemicals.
  • And, of course, avoid processed meats like hot dogs and sausage completely because they have been shown to increase the risk of cancer and diabetes (British Journal of Cancer, 106: 603-607, 2012; American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, doi: 10.3945/ajcn.111.018978, 2011) no matter how they are cooked.

So here’s to a healthier backyard bbq. Bon appétit!

The Bottom Line

1)     You already knew that red meat and processed meats may increase your risk of cancer, but how you cook your red meat also matters. Grilling your meat and/or cooking it until it is well done appear to significantly increase your risk of developing advanced prostate cancer.

2)     In contrast, consumption of white meat was not associated with increased cancer risk, no matter what the cooking method was used.

3)    I’ve included several tips on how you can reduce the cancer risk associated with grilling red meats in the article above so you can enjoy both your cookouts and your health.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Do Selenium & Vitamin E Increase Prostate Cancer Risk?

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Should Men Avoid Those Supplements?

 Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

Vitamin EYou’ve probably seen the headlines saying “Supplementation with selenium and vitamin E increases the risk of prostate cancer.” The authors of the study even said “Men aged greater than 55 should avoid supplements with either vitamin E or Se (selenium) at doses that exceed recommended dietary intakes.”

In a recent “Health Tips From The Professor” I debunked the headlines saying “Omega-3 fatty acids increase prostate cancer risk“.

What about vitamin E and selenium? Is it true that they increase prostate cancer risk? If you are a man over 55, should you be concerned? Should you stop using supplements containing vitamin E and selenium?

Do Selenium & Vitamin E Increase Prostate Cancer Risk?

Previous Studies On Selenium, Vitamin E And Prostate Cancer Risk

The study that generated the initial excitement in the field was the Nutrition Prevention of Cancer (NPC) Trial that ended in 1998 (Clark et al, British Journal of Urology, 81: 730-734, 1998; Duffield-Lillico et al, British Journal of Urology, 91: 608-612, 2003).

That study showed that supplementing men who had low blood levels of selenium with 200 ug/day of selenium decreased their prostate cancer risk by 65%.

It was followed by a second, much larger trial called the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT) (Lipmann et al, JAMA, 301: 39-51, 2009). It looked at supplementation with 200 ug/day of selenium and/or 400 IU/day of synthetic alpha-tocopherol.

The SELECT study found no protective effect of either selenium or vitamin E on prostate cancer risk, but did suggest that vitamin E might actually cause a slight increase in prostate cancer risk.

The Study That Generated The Headlines

The authors of the study that generated the recent headlines (Kristal et al, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, doi: 10.1093/jnci/djt456, 2014) were attempting to find a simple explanation for the unexpected results of the SELECT study.

They hypothesized that the baseline selenium status at the beginning of the study might have influenced the outcome of supplementation. Kristal et al reanalyzed the data from the SELECT trial, comparing the effect of selenium and vitamin E supplementation in men with low selenium status and men with high selenium status.

However, at face value their data were confusing rather simplifying. They found:

  • Supplementation with selenium had no effect on prostate cancer risk in men with low selenium status, but increased prostate cancer risk by 91% in men with high selenium status.
  • Conversely, supplementation with 400 IU of vitamin E had no effect on prostate cancer risk in men with high selenium status, but increased prostate cancer risk by 63% in men with low selenium status.

Based on this hodge-podge of data, they concluded that “Men aged greater than 55 should avoid supplements with either vitamin E or Se (selenium) at doses that exceed recommended dietary intakes.” That was the statement that generated the headlines. Was that recommendation justified?

What Do Other Experts Say?

There was an editorial evaluation of the paper by some of the top expects in the field in the same journal (Frankel et al, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, doi: 10.1093/jnci/dju005, 2014) that provided thoughtful explanations of the confusing data in the paper by Kristal et al. They examined three questions:

1)     Why did the SELECT study find no effect of selenium supplementation in men with low selenium status, while the earlier NPC trial found a 65% decrease in prostate cancer risk?

  • The authors of the editorial pointed out that the lowest baseline selenium status in the SELECT trial was much higher than the lowest baseline selenium status in the previous NPC trial. In fact the baseline selenium status in the SELECT trial was at a level in which no effect of selenium supplementation would have been expected based on the results from the NPC trial.

The authors speculated that the addition of selenized yeast to animal feed has improved selenium status in the US population to the point where selenium supplementation can no longer be expected to reduce prostate cancer risk.

2)     Why did selenium supplementation increase prostate cancer risk in men with high selenium status, but not in men with low selenium status?

  • The authors pointed out that for selenium there is a very narrow range between sufficient intake and toxicity. The daily value (DV) for selenium is 90 ug/day and the recommended upper limit (UL) for selenium intake is 400 ug/day.

The average selenium intake for adult men in this country is 151 ug/day. That’s just the average. It’s not hard to imagine that adding 200ug/day of selenium to men at the highest selenium intake could move them into the toxic range.

3)     Why did vitamin E supplementation increase prostate cancer risk in men with low selenium status, but not in men with high selenium status?

  • In part, the authors felt that the pure alpha-tocopherol used in the SELECT trial was not optimal. Pure alpha-tocopherol interferes with the absorption of the other naturally occurring forms of vitamin E, such as gamma-tocopherol – which is the form of vitamin E that decreases prostate cancer risk in animal studies.
  • The authors also noted that vitamin E and selenium work together to inactivate free radicals in cell membranes. Vitamin E reduces the free radicals to a chemically unstable intermediate that still has the potential to damage membranes. A selenium-containing enzyme is required to convert that unstable intermediate into a completely harmless compound.

So when vitamin E is present in much higher levels than selenium, as it was in the group with low baseline selenium status, unstable radicals can accumulate and membrane damage can occur. The authors felt that this was the most likely explanation of the increased prostate cancer risk when men with low selenium status were supplemented with high dose vitamin E.

The authors of the editorial had a much more nuanced interpretation of the data reported by Kristal et al. If you read their evaluation carefully you would likely conclude that you should avoid high dose selenium supplements. However, rather than simply avoiding vitamin E supplements, you should choose vitamin E supplements that contain all of the naturally occurring vitamin E forms and contain near DV amounts of selenium.

These recommendations would be a much better fit to the data, but don’t lend themselves to dramatic headlines – so the editorial has been largely ignored by the press.

The Bottom Line:

1)     Ignore the scary headlines about selenium and vitamin E causing prostate cancer. You can continue to use your supplements as long as you choose ones that are well balanced.

2)     Conversely, if you are at risk of prostate cancer, there is no good evidence that supplementation with either selenium or vitamin E will reduce your risk.

3)     The results of this study are fully consistent with my longstanding recommendation to follow a holistic approach to supplementation and to avoid high dose single nutrient supplements.

4)     There is no reason to supplement with 200 ug/day of selenium. If you are already getting good amounts of selenium from your diet, that dosage could be toxic and may actually increase your risk of cancer. Make sure that your supplements have no more than the DV (70 ug) of selenium.

5)     Avoid high purity alpha-tocopherol supplements. Look for vitamin E supplements containing the full spectrum of tocopherols and tocotrienols in addition to alpha-tocopherol. In addition, make sure that your vitamin E supplement also contains selenium at near DV levels.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Do Omega-3 Fatty Acids Cause Prostate Cancer?

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Fish, Fish Oils And Prostate Cancer

Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

Pure Fish OilMy phone has been ringing off the hook. My email in-box is full. It seems that everyone wants to know if the headlines about omega-3 fatty acids and prostate cancer are true.

In case you have just gotten back from a vacation on some deserted island with no newspapers and no internet, let me bring you up to date. The headlines are saying things like “Fish Oils May Increase Your Risk of Prostate Cancer” and “Latest Study Links Fish Oils to Prostate Cancer”.

Once again, it seems like just when you’ve figured out which foods that are good for you, someone tells you they could actually kill you. It’s no wonder so many of you have been asking me to cut through the hype and put this latest study in perspective.

What the study actually says:

As usual, let me start with the study itself (Brasky et al., Journal of the National Cancer Institute, doi: 10.1093/jnci/djt174). On the surface, it appears to be a reasonably well designed study, and the conclusions were dramatic. They reported that subjects with high levels of omega-3 fatty acids in their blood were 43% more likely to develop prostate cancer, 44% more likely to develop low grade prostate cancer, and 71% more likely to develop high grade prostate cancer compared to those with low levels of omega-3 fatty acids in their blood.

The flaws in the study:

Case closed you might be tempted to say. However, once you dig a little deeper, the study does have two important weaknesses.

1)     It used data from another study that was designed for a totally different purpose. They went back and analyzed blood samples from a previous study that was actually designed to measure the association between vitamin E and selenium intake and prostate cancer. That’s a scientific no-no.  Let me explain why.

If they had designed a study to investigate the association between omega-3 fatty acids and prostate cancer, they probably would have selected participants with a wide range of omega-3 fatty acids in their blood at the beginning of the study. The subjects in this study actually had a very narrow range of omega-3 fatty acids in their bloodstream.

They also would probably have done a diet analysis and found out whether the subject’s omega-3 fatty acids were coming from fish or fish oil supplements. They might have even asked whether the omega-3 fatty acids were from farm-raised fish or inexpensive fish oil supplements known to be contaminated with PCBs. This study collected none of these data.

2)     This is a single study, and individual studies often provide misleading results. For example, if you examine their data closely, it looks like heavy drinkers and smokers might have a decreased risk of prostate cancer. I think that’s unlikely, but weird associations like that often pop up in individual studies.

What do you find when you look at other studies?

Expert scientists aren’t swayed by individual studies. We prefer to look at the “big picture” that emerges when you combine the results of many studies. For example, a meta-analysis of 24 studies with 461,402 subjects (Symanski et al, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 92: 1223-1233, 2010) found no association between fish consumption and prostate cancer risk.

Individual studies ranged from a 61% decrease in risk to a 77% increase in risk, but the overall effect was zero! Even more importantly, fish consumption decreased prostate cancer deaths by 63%.

The Bottom Line:

1)     Don’t panic. Don’t change what you are doing based on the latest sensational headlines. This study has been way overblown. We have come to expect sensational headlines and hype from journalists and bloggers because that’s how they get people to read what they write.

However, I find the comment from the senior author that “We’ve shown once again that use of nutritional supplements may be harmful” to be very irresponsible, especially since they have no data showing that anyone in their study actually used fish oil supplements.

2)     The benefits of assuring optimal omega-3 fatty acid intake clearly overshadow the risks. Omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to lower triglycerides and blood pressure, reduce inflammation and depression, and may even help prevent dementia.

3)     This study does raise a caution flag, but I would not recommend reducing your omega-3 fatty acid intake on the basis of these data alone – especially since most published studies show no increased risk of prostate cancer. There are much better designed studies underway that should clearly show an increase in prostate cancer risk if it is a real effect. I will monitor those studies closely and keep you abreast of any new developments.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Health Tips From The Professor