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As was true in my case, men usually don't know that they have prostate cancer for quite some time after the malignancy takes root, because it produces no symptoms in its early stages of growth. In fact, often there are no symptoms at all, or only very minor ones that can easily be overlooked. The early symptoms of prostate cancer are very similar to those of BPH, including getting up frequently at night to urinate (called nocturia); urinating frequently, but often only in small amounts (referred to as frequency); having to wait longer for the urine flow to begin (hesitation); and a urinary stream that starts and stops (intermittency).

Having these symptoms does not mean that you have prostate cancer.
But if you do have these or other symptoms, it's best to get yourself checked.

Despite the fact that it's the number-two cancer killer in men, prostate cancer ordinarily grows slowly and is not, by itself, a deadly disease -- if it stays in the prostate. It will likely cause mild to severe urinary problems, but will not, in most cases, be deadly. Unfortunately, the cells that make up prostate cancer like to travel. Like boiling water in a pot bubbling over, prostate cancer "pours" out of the prostate gland into the surrounding tissue. Once free of the prostate, the cancer cells can find new homes in the bones, liver, brain, lungs, spinal cord, or elsewhere. When that happens, the cancer that was simply annoying becomes deadly. And it often becomes deadly long before anyone knows it exists, for more than 40% of all prostate cancers have moved beyond the prostate gland before they are detected.³

What Causes Prostate Cancer?

Many things can turn a healthy prostate cancerous, including poor diet, emotional distress, muscular pressure, stress, family history, exposure to various toxins, environmental factors, radiation, sex life, general lifestyle, and even the type of clothing you wear. BPH is often a precursor to prostate cancer, and should be treated as quickly as possible. All these possible causes share one thing in common: They restrict the flow of blood and oxygen to the prostate. Without life-giving oxygen and the numerous nutrients in the blood, prostate cells are bound to go bad.

Diet, long ignored by modern medicine, was finally recognized as a major cause of prostate cancer in 1982 when the National Research Council's report, Diet, Nutrition and Cancer, strongly linked dietary factors to prostate, breast, and colon cancer. Fat was identified as the major culprit, causing hormonal imbalances that are known to clog the tiny blood vessels of the prostate and encourage cancer.

The most convincing information concerning the diet/prostate cancer link comes from comparing large groups of people with different diets. For example, black males living in Africa have little or no prostate cancer, while those living in the U.S. have the highest rate of prostate cancer in the world, an incidence 50% greater than that of white American males. Why are blacks in America more likely to get prostate cancer than blacks in Africa or white men in the United States? In an attempt to answer that question, an intriguing study⁴ looked at a total of 284 black and white men in California who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. It found that the risk of the disease:

• Increased significantly (1.8 to 2.8 times) among black men who frequently ate pork, beef, and eggs.
• Decreased significantly among those who frequently consumed carrots, spinach,collards, and poultry.

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3. Murphy, G.P., et al. 1982. The National Survey of Cancer in the United States by the American College of Surgeons. J Urol 127:928-934.
4. Ross, R., et al. 1987. Case-control studies of prostate cancer in blacks and whites in Southern California. J Natl Cancer Inst 78(5):869-874.

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