Natural Alternative Helps Fight Prostate Cancer

Lifestlye Changes, Low-Fat Diet Recommended For Patients

UPDATED: 9:30 a.m. EDT November 15, 2002

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer diagnosed among American men. Popular treatments include removing the prostate, radiation and chemotherapy. Though often successful, these treatments can leave men impotent and incontinent.

What if there was a treatment that worked without the side effects? Sound too good to be true? Maybe not.

This is more than just a walk in the park for Leonard Norwitz. It's therapy for prostate cancer -- a diagnosis he was sort of expecting.

"I was surprised it took that long. Cancer is pretty rampant in my family. It was like the other shoe dropping," Norwitz said.

What he wasn't expecting was the potential side effects of conventional treatment.

"The idea of the incontinence thing was just very difficult for me. Impotence, of course, but you know -- both," Norwitz said.

So he took a different path. Norwitz enrolled in a study led by famed Dr. Dean Ornish. His research focuses on lifestyle and diet changes to fix what ails you.

"We asked people to follow a low-fat, whole foods, plant-based diet, predominantly fruits, vegetables, grains, beans and soy products," said Ornish, founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute.

Patients also exercised regularly, met with a support group once a week, and meditated once a day.

"PSA levels, as a marker for prostate cancer, were essentially unchanged in the comparison group, but they went down significantly in the group that made comprehensive changes in diet and lifestyle," Ornish said.

According to him, no one dies from prostate cancer unless it metastasizes. And it's not going to metastasize unless your PSA goes up.

Norwitz stands by his decision to fight cancer naturally. His PSA levels have been steady for more than three years, but that's not the only benefit.

"That decision required a renewal of vows every day, and I think that's very powerful," he said.

PSA levels went down in the group that made lifestyle changes and none received any additional conventional treatment, though they had the option to do so. In contrast, the PSA levels in the group that did not make lifestyle changes stayed the same or went up, even though some of them did have conventional treatment.

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