A second interesting study about prostate cancer this week ties high cholesterol levels to the growth of prostate tumors, which could explain why men who live in the Western world are more prone to suffer from it. For example, prostate cancer rates in some areas of Japan and China are as much as 90 percent lower than in the West.
When Eastern men migrated westward, however, their risk of contracting prostate cancer grew, leading researchers to theorize diet may play a more significant role than initially believed.
Scientists tested their theory by injecting human prostate cancer cells into rats and letting them grow. When mice were fed high cholesterol diets, cholesterol accumulated in the outer membranes of tumor cells. That collecting altered chemical signaling patterns so that prostate cancer cells were proliferating instead of dying. Also, mice fed high-cholesterol diets had twice as many tumors as those on ordinary diets, and they were much bigger too.
One finding that concerns me: When prostate cancer cells were exposed to the statin drug, simvastatin (better known as Zocor), tumor production decreased and cancer cell death prospered. This result led researchers to speculate statin drugs could be prescribed to “prevent” prostate cancer.
Before you even think about considering this strategy, I strongly urge you to review a page I’ve filled top-to-bottom with links that describe, in detail, the dangers of using statin drugs. So much so, that attempts to change any of them to over-the-counter status have failed.
Two primary strategies that work well virtually every time if properly implemented:
- Daily cardiovascular exercise.
- A healthy eating plan that eliminates sugars and grains.