Vegetables, fruits and cereals slow down prostate cancer

Increasing the proportion of foods of plant origin and reducing those of animal origin helps slow the progression of prostate cancer.

It is a publication produced by a team from San Francisco which followed 2000 men after their diagnosis of prostate cancer. The risk of disease progression is reduced by 47% in those who eat the highest proportion of plant-based diets, compared to those who give it less space.

franceinfo: Eating less food of animal origin would slow down prostate cancer. Géraldine Zamansky, you are a journalist at the Health Magazine on France 5 and this week you are telling us about the better prognosis of men affected by this cancer, thanks to a more “vegetarian” diet?

Geraldine Zamansky: This is exactly the result of monitoring more than 2000 men for an average of 6.5 years, after the diagnosis of prostate cancer, without metastases. The risk of progression of their disease was reduced by 47%, among those who ate the most foods of plant origin, compared to those who gave them less space on their plate.

Vivian Liu, the coordinator of this research at the University of California, told me that maximum protection was obtained without becoming vegetarian. But by eating 8 servings of fruits, vegetables or whole grains every day, and keeping close to 4 servings of meat, eggs or dairy products. Knowing that a portion is an apple, or a small half of an avocado and 85 g of steak or 25 cl of milk.

And how does this plant-based diet reduce the progression of cancer cells? Thanks to vitamins?

Exactly, thanks to several vitamins and other minerals, capable of protecting and even repairing our cells. With stimulation of the immune defenses and anti-inflammatory action. In short, the whole forms a sort of shield against the transformation and multiplication of cancer cells.

Vivian Liu also explained to me the opposite role of foods of animal origin. Because of toxic substances formed by cooking meat at high temperatures, for example (heterocyclic amines). Or even a kind of super fuel for tumors, contained in dairy products (IGF1).

For sure, this list of dangerous components can help you become more “vegetarian”…

Professor François Desgrandchamps, urological surgeon at Saint-Louis Hospital in Paris, indeed finds in Vivian Liu’s study an additional argument to encourage his patients in this direction.

He reminded me that last February, another long-term follow-up of men affected by prostate cancer showed a link between more fruits and vegetables on the plate, and better sexual and urinary health. .

Without forgetting other publications on the specific benefits of tomatoes, especially cooked, or the cabbage family against this disease. But be careful, food is just another weapon in the battle. These different studies have one essential thing in common: the patients first all followed the treatments proposed by their doctors.