If you are on androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), before you even lift a fork to your mouth, you’re already behind the eight ball: You’re predisposed to gain weight. You’re also more likely to lose muscle mass, and to undergo changes in metabolism that could lead to insulin resistance, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. And it’s not your fault. These are simply known, predictable outcomes of having very low levels of androgens in your body.
A poor diet – one heavy in carbs, sugar, fat, and the many chemicals found in processed food – can worsen all of these effects. But wait! Could the reverse be true? Could a major change to the diet help minimize ADT’s undesirable consequences? PCF-funded investigators believe it can. In fact, they believe it could even be life-changing, and they are conducting a study to find out more.
The key to this encouraging study is six months of a “whole-food plant-based diet.” What is that, exactly? Does “whole food” include meat, fish, or chicken that’s not processed? No, it does not. No animal products, no meat, milk, cheese, eggs, or seafood. Furthermore, no added sugars or white flour, no processed cooking oils (oils high in trans fats, polyunsaturated fats, or oils that are highly refined, such as corn, canola, or safflower oils). No processed food chock full of additives. No empty calories. No junk.
That’s a lot of “no.” But consider the long list of “yes” food: fresh and cooked veggies, fruits, whole grains, beans, nuts, olive oil, herbs, and a vast array of spices. In this diet, everything you eat is good for you and good for your heart – and this means it might even help your body fight the cancer.
“It’s not a vegetarian diet; it’s not even vegan: it’s more than vegan!” says Weill-Cornell medical oncologist David Nanus, M.D. He is Principal Investigator of this study, along with medical oncologists Channing Paller, M.D., of Johns Hopkins, and Mark Stein, M.D., of Columbia University. “The whole-food, plant-based diet is the antithesis of processed food.”
Note: a diet is not automatically healthy just because it omits meat. For example, Nanus explains, “you can have a Snickers bar or eat a bag of Doritos and think, ‘Hey, it’s vegetarian!’ A whole-food, plant-based diet doesn’t just include food that is good for you: it contains zero food that is not good for you. It also promotes satiety – that feeling of being full.
When men first start the study’s diet, “they look at the portions and think, ‘Really? That’s it? That’s my lunch?’” says Nanus. “But then you eat it, and think ‘Wow, I’m full!’ If you eat the right food, it turns off that message in your brain that says ‘I’ve got to eat more!’ With junk food, you’re never satisfied. It’s not meant to satisfy you.”
Read next: Part 2: Excess Weight, Prostate Cancer, and ADT
