PROSTATE CANCER AND THREE DRIVERS
By Harry Chrissakis M.H. M.T. Natural Medicine
Of the 4 leading cancers ( Breast, Prostate, Colon and Lung Cancer ) prostate cancer is the slowest of all in doubling time. Doubling time is how long it takes a collection of cancer cells to double in number (referring to a tumor ). Coupling that with the fact that the mean age of diagnoses is 68 makes it seem somehow less dangerous.
Measuring the amount of men diagnosed each year (200,000) and the amount of men dying each year (35,000) helps bring things into focus. It is serious and of epidemic proportions. Prostate cancer continues to rise annually with no change in sight.
Cancer is a complex disorder and each cancer has it particular nuances. It may appear strange that one of the major driving forces behind prostate cancer is estrogen. This seems odd considering the fact that men produce estrogen in very small quantities. So where is it all coming from?
Let’s watch a short introductory video:
One of the obvious areas is environmental pollutants. Pesticides, soft plastics, estrogen given to animals that are food sources are sources of unwanted estrogen in our bodies. Actually these synthetic hormones are much more powerful than the strongest forms of estrogen that a women’s body produces and they are much harder for our bodies to detoxify.
Estrogen pushes cell division and it is designed to do just that. These synthetic hormones do much more at much smaller dosages and they are one of the reasons for BPH and prostate cancer.
All this being said, the major source of unnatural estrogen in a man’s body is due to insulin resistance and excess body fat. So how does that work?
Insulin resistance ( also known as the pre-diabetic condition ) is very common. Estimates are that 70 million Americans have it. If you combine that with the 30 million established diabetics it constitutes about one third of our country.
One of the common traits of insulin resistance and diabetes is being over weight. The type of fat and location of its deposition are indicative of what it is doing. White fat deposited around the gut, butt and thighs is not inert. This type of fat has the ability of converting androgens ( like testosterone ) into estrogens ( like estrone ). This is exactly what is happening in a man’s body, raising estrogen to an unnatural and dangerous level.
Adding to this is the fact that this type of fat also produces a range pro- inflammatory substances which aid cancer in all it major phases. Excess insulin ( produced by insulin resistance) up-regulates this problem. High amounts of insulin also convert weaker forms of estrogen into stronger, more dangerous forms. Abnormal amounts of estrogen are involved in all phases of the evolution of cancer.
Insulin resistance and diabetes are major players in producing systemic inflammation and in thickening the blood, both pro- cancer and pro- tumor events. Dietary changes and the use of natural agents can turn this around. It is one of the legs of a program to assist the cancer patient in general and prostate cancer patients who have insulin resistance/diabetes as part of there profile. Cancer loves sugar and insulin resistance/diabetes are disorders hallmarked by the common trait of elevated blood sugars.
A second female hormone that has become a driver of prostate cancer is prolactin. If you study male hormone physiology this makes zero sense. What could make men produce a hormone that women produce in order to lactate?
A section of the world of environmental pollutants known as xenobiotics are responsible.
Xenobiotics are hormone like substances that can bind to a hormone receptor, give a cell a completely different message than it is supposed to get ( as in having a man’s body produce prolactin ), or it may bind to the receptor site and damage the receptor or block the receptor so that it cannot receive proper information it needs for the cell to function correctly. Remembering that sex hormones can effect up to 300 different tissue sites, these perverse chemicals have a large systemic impact.
Contemporary medical thinking implicates testosterone as the driving force in prostate cancer and often part of therapy is to lower testosterone no matter how low it is. There are a number of questions in this area. The simplest being that men need testosterone to maintain health. Once again how does that work?
Testosterone is often too low in prostate cancer patients.
There are at least three reasons for this.
One was explained above: that testosterone is converted (by an enzyme that is in white fat) into estrogen.
The second reason is the conversion of testosterone to dehydrotestosterone (DHT). Under normal conditions this is a normal process. Under the cancer process DHT is abnormally high. DHT is 5 times stronger than testosterone in its proliferative capability. DHT is another main driver of prostate cancer.
The third is that their bodies are too deficient to manufacture adequate amounts of testosterone.
The conversion of testosterone to DHT is accomplished by an enzyme ( 5 alpha reductase ). A number of natural agents in sufficient quantity can interrupt this enzyme cascade and reduce this unnatural amount of DHT .
There are other factors that both lay the foundation and push the processes of prostate cancer. Estrogen, Prolactin and DHT play a central role in many cases of prostate cancer. Testing is available for these three hormones but is rarely done. Natural Medicine can normalize the production of all three of these drivers of prostate cancer as well as having an overall positive effect in both the prevention and to assist in the treatment of prostate cancer.
Harry Chrissakis Herbalist, M.H. M.T. Natural Healing