Aggressive, life-threatening prostate cancer could be reversed with a change of diet, new research has discovered.
Foods such as red meat, soy, egg and dairy feed molecules in the gut that make the cancer life-threatening.
Men who have high levels of the molecule—PAGIn (phenylacetylglutamine)—in their gut are up to three times more likely to get an aggressive form of the cancer, researchers from the Cleveland Clinic have established.
Metabolites are produced when microbes in the gut start to break down an amino acid called phenylalanine, which is found in meat, beans, soy, egg yolk and high-fat dairy. Two other nutrients in the food—choline and betaine—also raise the risk of aggressive prostate cancer.
Similar gut activity is also seen in stroke victims and people with heart disease.
So, taking the foods out of the diet stops the process at source, and is likely to make the cancer benign, the researchers say.
They tested the gut health of around 700 men to discover their levels of nutrients and gut metabolites before they were diagnosed with prostate cancer, and then compared them to others who didn’t have the cancer.
Those with high levels of PAGIn in their gut were two to three times more likely to have a lethal form of prostate cancer.
(Source: Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, 2021; cebp.0766.2021; doi: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-21-0766)
