New research shows that improved diet, meditation and other non-medical interventions can actually ‘turn off’ the disease-promoting process in men with prostate cancer.

YOUR genes are not your destiny. Lifestyle and diet can play an important role on your genes.

You can change the outcome even if it is "written" otherwise in your genes.

That is the founding basis of holistic medicine.

Now there is a new study to prove this.
It is the first study of its kind showing that improved nutrition, stress management techniques, walking, and psychosocial support actually changed the expression of over 500 genes in men with early-stage prostate cancer.

Lifestyle

A study conducted by Dean Ornish, MD, of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, along with researchers at the University of California, San Francisco found that lifestyle improvements have a beneficial effect on gene expression in men with prostate cancer.

The finding was reported in the June 17, 2008 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The investigation involved 30 participants in the Gene Expression Modulation by Intervention with Nutrition and Lifestyle (Geminal) study of men with low-risk prostate cancer.

This is cancer that develops very slowly and hence, poses far less risk. The men had opted for active surveillance of their disease in lieu of surgery or radiation.

Low Risk

In this study, they studied gene expression in biopsies from 30 men who were diagnosed with low-risk prostate cancer who decided not to undergo conventional treatments such as surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy for reasons unrelated to the study.

They had early, small-volume prostate cancer with stable prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels and Gleason scores of six or less, meaning that their tumors were not aggressive.

They had biopsies at the beginning of the study and it was repeated three months later, after making comprehensive lifestyle changes.

Since these patients did not have conventional treatments during this time, it enabled researchers to assess the effects of the lifestyle changes on gene expression without confounding interventions such as surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy.

For a three-month period, participants were asked to limit dietary fat to 10 per cent of daily calorie intake, adopt a whole food and plant-based diet, walking for 30 minutes per day for six days of the week, and to practise stress management in the form of stretching, breathing, meditation, imagery and relaxation for 60 minutes per day in addition to a one-hour per week group session.

Diets were supplemented daily with tofu (from soy), soy protein, three grammes of fish oil, 200 microgrammes of selenium, two grammes of vitamin C and 100 international units of vitamin E.

Cardiovascular disease risk factors, including weight, body mass index, waist circumference, blood pressure, lipids, and C-reactive protein, were measured before and after the intervention.

Oncogenes

Gene expression in initial prostate biopsies was compared with prostate tissue samples obtained after three months of following the lifestyle changes.

Forty-eight genes, including those that have disease-preventive effects, were found to be activated, and 453 genes, including oncogenes involved in breast and prostate cancer and other disease-promoting genes, were deactivated following the intervention.

Body mass index, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, lipids and waist circumference significantly improved. Benefits of the regimen were also observed in the participants' mental health-related quality of life and levels of cancer-associated mental distress.

"Intensive nutrition and lifestyle changes may modulate gene expression in the prostate," the authors concluded.

"Understanding the prostate molecular response to comprehensive lifestyle changes may strengthen efforts to develop effective prevention and treatment.

"Larger clinical trials are warranted to confirm the results of this pilot study."

Patients are advised to work with your doctor and healthcare team.

Hope

However, this study raises hope. Often, I hear people say, "Oh, my genes are bad, there's nothing I can do about it."It is genetic fatalism. It is saying that if your mum or dad died of cancer, then you are a ticking time bomb waiting for cancer to happen.

These findings (the first to show the effect of lifestyle changes on any kind of cancer genes) can be an antidote to this fatalistic thinking.

People must begin to make their own changes. In most cases, our genes are only a predisposition. Nothing is carved in stone.

And if we have a strong family history for diseases such as prostate cancer, breast cancer, or heart disease then we may need to make bigger changes in lifestyle in order to help prevent or even reverse chronic diseases.

In the centuries-old debate about nature versus nurture, we are learning that they both affect each other. It is not all in our genes. You are the master of your own destiny.

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Datuk Dr Rajen M. is a pharmacist with a doctorate in holistic medicine. Email him at health@po.jaring.my