I had been diagnosed with an “aggressive” prostate cancer. I learned from the Prostate Cancer Foundation research[1] that there are three well-established risk factors leading to prostate cancer: old age, family history, and black race.
The Prostate Cancer Foundation’s research findings are:
- < 50 years old 1 in 457 men are diagnosed
- 50-59 years old 1 in 55 men are diagnosed
- 60-69 years old 1 in 19 men are diagnosed
- > 70 years old 1 in 11 men are diagnosed.
Black men are twice as likely to die from prostate cancer than white men. One in six black males will be diagnosed with prostate cancer versus one in eight white males. The disparities are still unknown but are thought to result from environmental exposures, socioeconomic factors, access to screening, medical care, and genetics.
I guess that at the ripe old age of 73 my chances of having prostate cancer are one in eleven. I’m not black so I can eliminate that risk factor. My mother’s brother (uncle) and his son, (my cousin) both had prostate cancer. There were lots of men (brothers and “double” cousins) on my mother’s side of the family with my uncle and cousin the only two having prostate cancer. Without genetic testing throughout my family there’s no way of knowing if I was genetically susceptible to prostate cancer.
The Prostate Cancer Foundation also found that there are genes that increase cancer risk. These genes are subsequently inherited. Consequently, I will provide a DNA sample to determine if I have passed the cancer risk gene to my children.
Smoking and obesity are also factors associated with aggressive prostate cancer and “worse disease outcomes”. Further, if you are obese recovery from surgery will be longer, more difficult, and your risk of dying from prostate cancer higher. Smokers are also more likely to die from prostate cancer.
After I was diagnosed with prostate cancer I went on a strict vegan diet of fresh fruit and vegetables. I fasted. I lost 45 pounds. I don’t smoke. I would drink an occasional margarita or hot chocolate laced with Kahlua on a cold night. Understanding how much sugar was in alcohol and that sugar feeds cancer I ended my liquor consumption.
My prostatectomy could not have been more pain free or easy. I could have walked out of the hospital after awakening from my anesthetic, but my urologist kept me overnight to ensure there were no complications. I walked out the following morning and had no issues with the hour and a half drive home. Three weeks to the day of my surgery I played eighteen holes of golf.
A week after surgery I traveled back to my urologist to remove the foley catheter. Having been told that I would be incontinent for some time after my surgery I came prepared with diapers. Unbelievably I have had no incontinence. I do continue to employ a diaper. I relate a diaper to a gun and a parachute:
If you have one and don’t need it, life is good. If you don’t have one and need it, you are in deep shit.
Having had aggressive prostate cancer, distancing myself from my seventieth birthday every day, and possibly having a genetic predisposition, I have resigned myself to the realization that I will battle this disease from now on. I will continue with my lifestyle change to consuming living foods and drinking high pH water. Living foods like fruit and vegetables are also high in pH. Depriving cancer of its needed acidic environment by consuming alkaline food and drink, I pray will be a successful continuing therapy.
Social media is inundated with this vitamin or additive “proven” to kill cancer. One of my guiding principles to battle cancer is, “If you breathe clean air, drink clean water, you rise with the sun and go to bed with the sun, consume clean live foods you will not need additives.”[2] I do consume vitamins and additives as insurance to supplement my fruit and vegetable diet.
I also fast. My knee jerk reaction to fasting was that I don’t like to miss meals. Fasting involves an entire study which I will research and include in a future Blog. For too long I have lived to eat instead of eaten to live. Another principle that I consider to be profound is, “food security is having enough calories and nutritional security is having enough nutrients.”[3] Are you getting calories or nutrients? My goal now is to get nutrients.
Everything in the universe involves a chemical reaction. Chemicals react depending on what other chemicals they are combined. Certain chemicals compounded together create a nuclear explosion, other chemicals a human body. A human body requires additives to survive – nutrients, water, and oxygen.
In 1923 Otto Warburg discovered “aerobic glycolysis” when cancer tumors fermented glucose into lactate, “even in the presence of oxygen”.[4] This chemical reaction has been named The Warburg Effect. This is the foundation for tumor detection in positron emission tomography (PET) scans. No doubt additional research into cancer and chemistry will eventually lead to cancer’s cause and cure.
We consume oxygen from the air we breathe. Air contains oxygen and a plethora of other substances. We breathe air and our bodies metabolize it. If you live or work in an environment where toxins are part of the air you breathe then you could be setting yourself up for cancer or a host of other diseases. The Prostate Cancer Foundation reports, “Exposure to toxins such as Agent Orange may increase the risk of aggressive prostate cancer.”[5] If you were not a GI deployed to Viet Nam and were never exposed to Agent Orange don’t worry, there’s plenty of toxins in the air you breathe.
The American Lung Association website[6] defines toxic air pollutants, their health effects, and how you are exposed. The Lung Association’s website also provides links to learn about toxins in your community.[7]
Similarly, water contains toxins in addition to simply H2O. The United States Environmental Protection Agency website prints, “Clean water is vital to human health and to all living beings.”[8] So if you swim in, drink, or eat anything from polluted water you consume toxins and toxins result in disease.
The food we eat is also toxic. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) website reports that “more than 10,000 chemicals, some of which are potentially toxic, are allowed in cereal, snacks, meat, and many other types of food sold in the United States . . . Many of these widely used chemicals are associated with major health harms including increased risk of cancer . . .”[9]
EWG lists their Dirty Dozen Guide to Food Chemicals:
- Potassium Bromate
- Propyl paraben
- Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA)
- Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT)
- Titanium dioxide
- Seven artificial dyes
- Red 3
- Red 40
- Yellow 5
- Yellow 6
- Blue 1
- Blue 2
- Green 3
- Aspartame
- Azodicarbonamide (ADA)
- Propyl gallate
- Sodium benzoate
- Brominated vegetable oil (BVO)
- Sodium nitrite
These chemicals seem to be mostly found in meat, sodas/fruit drinks, candy, cereals, and flour. To find out more about the “Dirty Dozen” check out the EWG website at https://www.ewg.org/consumer-guides/ewgs-dirty-dozen-guide-food-chemicals-top-12-avoid .
Living healthily is very costly. It may require you to move where the air is cleaner. You may have to purchase equipment to purify your water. It will also force you to be more cognizant of the food you eat. Are you getting calories or nutrients?
Going no further than your grocer’s produce section is costly. Fresh produce has a short shelf life which requires you to shop more frequently. Produce is often more expensive than prepared food having long shelf lifespans due to their toxic ingredients. Meal prep is also time consuming as everything is prepared from scratch. Door Dash, Uber Eats, fast food drive throughs, meals out, or dinner with friends are frustrated when you restrict your diet to live foods.
Eating from a restaurant’s vegetarian menu is also not a given. Nuking a vegetarian pizza in a gazillion degree pizza oven destroys the nutritious value of all those fresh veggies piled on top. If that pizza crust contains the possible carcinogen, potassium bromate, you may defeat your purpose of eating vegan. Similarly, choosing the mushroom spaghetti with tomato sauce also sounds both appetizing and healthy. Tomatoes contain the antioxidants lycopene and beta carotene which are cancer fighters. Mushrooms are also known to support prostate health, promote heart health, and relieve stress and regulate sleep. But again, the spaghetti may contain flour formulated with potassium bromate.
Pizza crust and pasta are both carbohydrates which metabolize into sugar which feeds cancer. A cancer diet is live food and alkaline specific. Don’t think that eating vegan is fighting your cancer. You’ve got to understand what feeds cancer and consume nutrients that are good for you and bad for your cancer.
Salads are also a great choice provided you don’t add chicken containing toxins. Four toxic elements, chromium (Cr), arsenic (As), lead, (Pb), and cadmium (Cd) were found industry wide in chicken.[10] You will also want to dress your salad with extra virgin olive oil instead of the more common and cheaper salad dressings that contain their own toxins.
Here’s your mission to live a healthy life toxin and disease free: breathe clean air, drink clean water, rise with the sun, go to bed with the sun, and consume clean live foods. EZPZ lemon squeezy. Everything that occurs in the universe is the result of a chemical reaction including every decision you make. Choose well.
My urologist tested my PSA level post radical prostatectomy. An elevated PSA would indicate that cancer cells were still present in my body.
I wondered why if my prostate was gone what would produce the prostate specific antigen (PSA)? According to an Internet search AI told me:
- Any residual prostate cells would still produce PSA.
- Prostate cancer cells could produce PSA.
I deduced that any remaining cancer cells would be growing, spreading, and producing an ever-increasing PSA level. I assume that any PSA level above zero indicates the possibility that cancer is still in my body.
The expected PSA level for a successful surgery should be less than 0.1 ng/mL. This testing should be done 4 to 6 weeks after surgery. You wait to allow your body to get rid of any residual PSA to ensure that your PSA level is derived from these remaining cells only. Five weeks after my surgery my PSA is less than 0.1! Hallelujah! I will now monitor my PSA every three months.
[1] Are You at Higher Risk? Prostate Cancer Foundation https://www.pcf.org/patient-support/higher-risk/?msclkid=d2ca21e5b65f19166f5548eba903a0fb
[2] Hyman, Dr. Mark MD (https://drhyman.com/) https://youtu.be/UyneMnERmnI
[3] Hyman, Dr. Mark MD (https://drhyman.com/) https://youtu.be/UyneMnERmnI
[4] The Warburg effect drives dedifferentiation through epigenetic reprogramming
Haowen Jiang, Mohamed Jedoui and Jiangbin Ye
Cancer Biology & Medicine December 2023, 20 (12) 891-897; DOI: https://doi.org/10.20892/j.issn.2095-3941.2023.0467
[5] Prostate Cancer Foundation website (12/2023)( https://www.pcf.org/patient-support/higher-risk/?msclkid=d2ca21e5b65f19166f5548eba903a0fb)
[6] https://www.lung.org/clean-air/outdoors/what-makes-air-unhealthy/toxic-air-pollutants
[7] United States Environmental Protection Agency National Air Toxics Assessment (https://www.epa.gov/national-air-toxics-assessment) and the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program ( https://www.epa.gov/toxics-release-inventory-tri-program )
[8] United States Environmental Protection Agency (https://www.epa.gov/one-health/water ).
[9] Environmental Working Group website Myers, Iris (March 18, 2025) (https://www.ewg.org/consumer-guides/ewgs-dirty-dozen-guide-food-chemicals-top-12-avoid )
[10] National Institute of Health (NIH) National Library of Medicine Foods 2023 Mar 26;12(7):1404. doi: 10.3390/foods12071404 The Distribution of Selected Toxic Elements in Sauced Chicken during Their Feeding, Processing, and Storage Stages
Hangyan Ji 1,2,3, Yuan Zhang 1,2,3, Jianwei Zhao 1,2,3,*, Xing Zhou 1,2,3, Chenchen Wang 1,2,3, Zhengyu Jin 1,2,3
Editor: Dirk W Lachenmeier
Life with Cancer 
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