Most Men Don’t Know How Much This Affects Prostate Cancer Risk (If They Know It At All)

Prostate cancer affects 12% of men overall, and 60% of men aged 60+, with that percentage climbing each year thereafter.

And, which may surprise many, the creator of the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test has since decried it as “a profit-driven health disaster” that is “no better than a coin toss”, but it remains the first go-to of many medical services, even though there’s a newer, much more accurate test, called the Prostate Screening Episwitch (PSE) test, which is 94% accurate, so you might consider asking your healthcare provider whether that’s an option:

The new prostate cancer blood test with 94 per cent accuracy

But that’s for knowing whether you (or a loved one) have/has it.

What about changing the risk?

The numbers are not looking good for dairy-enjoyers

A representative survey of 1,102 men in the US found:

• 20% said they knew research has linked milk and other dairy products with increased prostate cancer risk
• 66% said they would consider avoiding dairy after learning about the association
• 76% supported warning labels on dairy products about prostate cancer risk

Source: Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine: Prostate Cancer & Nutrition Survey

So, what do we actually know about this?

To get us started, here’s a meta-analysis of 32 studies that found evidence of elevated risk associated with dairy consumption:

Dairy products, calcium, and prostate cancer risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies

Further, one study found that a 19% higher risk of prostate cancer for those consuming at least one serving of milk daily:

Whole Milk Intake Is Associated with Prostate Cancer-Specific Mortality among U.S. Male Physicians

Another study found that men consuming several servings of low-fat dairy per day had a 2x (or even higher still) increased risk of prostate cancer:

Dairy, calcium, and vitamin D intakes and prostate cancer risk in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Epidemiologic Follow-up Study cohort

But what of mortality? Here’s a big (n=778,929) meta-analysis of studies that found that men consuming the most whole milk had up to a 50% higher risk of dying from prostate cancer than those consuming the least:

Dairy products intake and cancer mortality risk: a meta-analysis of 11 population-based cohort studies

However, there is some good news!

Men enjoying a vegan diet also enjoyed a 35% lower prostate cancer risk than those consuming animal products in general (be they ovo-lacto vegetarians, pescetarians, omnivores, whatever):

Are strict vegetarians protected against prostate cancer? ← Black men did not get as much risk reduction as white men, though we may hypothesize that this is more likely due to structural barriers to healthcare that cause an increase in pretty much all health risks

^{(And yes, that headline is a case of Betteridge’s law striking again, because the answer is “no”, just in this case there’s at least a “no, but on average, vegans are”)}

Lastly, in a study with 2,038 men with prostate cancer already, those consuming the most plant-based foods enjoyed a 56% lower risk of prostate cancer progression and a 59% lower risk of recurrence than those consuming the fewest—which means that including more plants may be in and of itself useful, alongside reducing dairy:

Associations between plant-based diets and risk of disease progression in men with prostate cancer

Want to learn more?

To probe much more deeply into prostate health than we have room to do here, you might like this book that we reviewed:

Dr. Patrick Walsh’s Guide to Surviving Prostate Cancer – by Dr. Patrick Walsh & Janet Farrar Worthington ← we highly recommend it; it could easily be a literal lifesaver.

Take care!