Eating fruits and vegetables in lots of different colors can help keep prostate cancer away!
Researchers from the University of South Australia discovered that men who eat a lot of colorful fruits and vegetables regularly have a lower chance of being diagnosed with prostate cancer. Not only that, it can also help speed up recovery if someone is going through radiation treatment for prostate cancer.
Researchers looked at the differences in amounts of certain vitamins and minerals between prostate cancer patients and healthy people. They found that the prostate cancer patients had low levels of things like lutein, lycopene and selenium, but higher levels of iron, sulfur, and calcium compared to the group that did not have cancer. These results show why it is so important to eat a diet rich in Mediterranean or Asian foods.
When exposed to radiation, people with not enough lycopene and selenium in their blood plasma are likely to be more vulnerable to the harm caused by radiation. Scientists find that people with a level of lycopene at 0.25 micrograms per milliliter in their blood or less than 120 ug/L for selenium have a higher chance of getting prostate cancer.
If you want to get more lycopene and selenium in your diet, it’s best to eat tomatoes, melons, papayas, grapes, peaches, watermelons and cranberries. You can also get these two nutrients from white meat, fish, shellfish, eggs or nuts. Dr. Permal Deo says that eating foods with these nutrients is much better than taking supplement pills because previous research has shown the benefits of supplements are limited.
Dr. Deo suggests that we should eat based on a Mediterranean diet, and to get help from a dietician because everyone’s body may absorb food differently. Prostate cancer is very common in men and it can be deadly, but the exact reasons why people get it are not yet clear – so this study is being done to find out more.
When you are older, it is more likely that you could get prostate cancer. Your ethnicity, family history and age also affect the risk of prostate cancer.
It has been carefully studied and confirmed that being overweight or tall increases your chances of getting prostate cancer. Eating lots of dairy products and not enough vegetables, nuts, and fruits (which contain Vitamin E) might raise your chances too but this hasn’t been proven for sure yet.
Researchers just did a test to figure out whether the levels of vitamins, minerals, and metals in people’s blood could link to prostate cancer– and it was all done with people living in South Australia. The results are published in Cancers journal under the title: “Plasma Micronutrient Profile of Prostate Cancer Cases Is Altered Relative to Healthy Controls—Results of a Pilot Study in South Australia” by Varinderpal S. Dhillon, Permal Deo and Michael Fenech (DOI Number: 10.3390/cancers15010077).
Dr. Varinderpal Dhillon, Dr. Permal Deo, and Professor Michael Fenech wrote a paper titled “Effect of Selenium and Lycopene on Radiation Sensitivity in Prostate Cancer Patients Relative to Controls” that is being published in the journal Cancers on 3 February 2023. All three authors are part of UniSA’s Clinical and Health Sciences unit. This paper looks at treatments for prostate cancer according to evidence-based research.
