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There are certain ailments one expects as
an unfortunate consequence of getting older.
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For men, frequent late night trips to the
bathroom and increased risk of prostate cancer
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are regarded as inevitable aspects of aging, with treatments ranging from medication to invasive
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and debilitating surgery. But whatif prostate enlargement and cancer could be prevented
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and even reversed? What if what your doctor isn’t telling you could save your life?
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Hi it's Emily from Bite Size Vegan and
welcome to another vegan nugget.
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Despite the serious complications and even fatal outcomes, the topic of prostate health is rarely
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addressed in an appropriate,
constructive or respectful manner.
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With an astounding array of prostate-themed jokes poking fun at increased urination and
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the horrors of rectal exams, an enlarged prostate
seems more like a right of passage into infirmity
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than a medical condition. And with heaps of
supplement scams, prescription-pushing physicians
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and scalpel-wielding surgeons, and it’s
hard to know what information or approach
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to trust.
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In this fourth installment of the Men’s
Health Series with Dr. Greger of Nutritionfacts.org,
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we’re going to see what the science says
about preventing, treating and reversing Benign
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Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH)—the medical
term for the non-cancerous enlargement of
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the prostate—and prostate cancer. If you’ve
seen the first three installments on testosterone,
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erectile dysfunction, and soy’s effect on
hormones, you’ll notice a common theme of
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the medical profession—ignoring simple and
effective treatment in favor of ineffective
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and debilitating measures.
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Prostate surgery, the various methodologies
of which read like a list of medieval torture
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practices, can leave men with ongoing erectile
dysfunction and urinary incontinence issues,
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among other side effects.
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Let’s take a quick look at what two of the
leading institutions have to offer. In regards
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to Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia and prostate
cancer respectively, the American Urological
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Association and National Cancer Institute
do give a cursory nod to the effects of exercise
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and diet on prostate health, but fail to expand
upon what that means in practical terms.
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If we look at the AUA’s extensive guidelines
for BPH treatment, there is “watchful waiting,”
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essentially meaning, let’s just see what
happens, during which period no recommendations
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are made for dietary intervention. Then there
are medical therapies, meaning drugs, which
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receive seven pages of prescription possibilities,
a potentially promising section on alternatives
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only addresses dietary supplements, and surgical
procedures shine with a six-page spread.
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Perhaps the worst offender is the AUA’s
Prostate Health Playbook, in which they attempt
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to convey this misinformation through strained
football analogies in an astoundingly patronizing
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and condescending manner—as if possession
of a prostate renders one borderline incompetent,
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requiring spoon-fed sports comparisons
for basic comprehension.
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The information Dr. Greger will share can
spare you the pain of the devastating effects
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of potentially unnecessary surgery and even
save your life. And the fact that you’ll
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never hear this from your doctor is why you
should be pissed about your prostate.
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Emily: So prostate health is a huge concern
for men. What we usually hear the most of
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is enlarged prostate and prostate cancer.
The way that these are presented, though,
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by the medical field, it seems like they are
almost inevitable aspects of aging. Can prostate
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cancer and an enlarged prostate be prevented
and how so?
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Dr. Greger: Some of the most compelling data
for eating healthy for men and women has come
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out of Dr. Dean Ornish’s lab, who firstshowed that—
was first to do a randomized controlled
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trial showing that indeed heart disease could
be reversed with a plant-based diet and other
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healthy lifestyle behaviors. Opening up arteries
without drugs, without surgery.
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And so, after conquering killer #1 he’s
ok next and went on to kill the #2 cancer
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and took men with prostate cancer and put
them on a plant-based diet. Same kind of regimen
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and actually got a reversal in the growth
of prostate—early stage prostate cancer.
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And indeed it’s interesting when you take
serum, when you take blood from men who have
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been on a plant-based diet for a year and
drip them on cancer cells growing in a petri
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dish, they suppress the growth of that cancer
about 8 times better compared to the blood
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of people men eating the Standard American
Diet.
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What’s interesting is a different group
of researches said, well wait a second, I
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wonder if the same effect on normal prostate
cell. So the same experiment and found indeed
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you go on a plant-based diet and this time
it was just the diet without exercise and
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stress management components. You go on a
plant-based diet your blood indeed is better
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able to suppress the growth of the normal
prostate cells.
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And I talk about in the video indeed this
kind of it’s kind of inevitable consequence
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of aging. You get older, your prostate enlarges
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the Standard American Diet and aging.
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So I talk about the statistics in the US.
It effects—so an enlarged prostate—and
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when I say enlarged prostate, what does that
mean? It kind of squeezes off the urethra
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where the urine goes through and so you have
to frequently get up at night a couple times
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because you can’t, you have this kind of
weak, hesitant urine stream and you can’t
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completely evacuate your bladder and then
so your bladder fills up over and over again.
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And anyway.
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And then is a stagnant pool of urine can set
more than likely be infected. Fifty percent
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of men in their 50s are affected, 80% of their
men in the 80s. It’s an epidemic in the
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US. 16 million American men. A billion dollars
a year is spent on drugs to treat it and another
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billion on supplements, lots of surgery that’s
done. And the reason we know that it’s not
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an inevitable consequence of aging is because
you can look at different populations around
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the globe.
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So for example in China, there was study that
found at the Medical College of Beijing, they
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didn’t have 80% of me infected. They found
80 cases period. Eighty-four over a 15 year
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period. It was such a rare, it was considered
kind of rare condition until of course China
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started eating like us.
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And so there are particular food that appear
to help. Garlic and onions, allium family
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vegetables. Cooked vegetables appear to work
better than raw vegetables and legumes, beans,
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flip peas, chickpeas, lentils as well as flax
seeds. And there are actually head to head
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challenges of ground flax seed versus the
leading drug prescribed for PBH patients and
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it worked just as well without the side effects
but as a group Pritikin researchers showed
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its not just these individual plant foods,
but if you go on an entirely plant-based diet,
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you can dramatically slow down the growth
of the suppressed cancer cells so you don’t
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have to deal with this as one gets older.
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I hope you found what Dr. Greger shared to
be helpful and eye-opening. On a personal
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level, when researching for this video, I
did not at all expect to get so angry about
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prostates.
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But the more I looked into the studies so
graciously compiled by Dr. Greger, and compared
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their data to the guidelines of major medical
organizations, the more angry I became.
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Everyone deserves to be fully informed about
their health, and offered all of the possible
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treatments. As longs as doctors present BPH
and prostate cancer risk as just a part of
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aging and fail to alert their patients to
effective, non-invasive methods of prevention
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and reversal, countless men will continue
to undergo unnecessary surgery and even lose
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their lives.
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For more on why your doctor is lying to you,
see this video with Dr. Greger. Please see
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the blog post for this video linked below
for more information and links to Dr. Greger’s
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extensive content on prostate health, including
more about which foods to avoid and include
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in your diet, and to his NYT best seller How
Not To Die, which includes an entire chapter
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on prostate health.
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To make sure you’re getting the prostate-healthy
nutrition you need, I wanted to let you know
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about Cronometer. It’s a free website and
app that I’ve used in several of my videos
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because of it’s uniquely detailed nutrition
reports and ease of use. Plus, they’ve reached
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out to help sponsor the Men’s Health series
to get this vital educational information
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out to those who need it. Click the link in
the description, or go here to make your free
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profile. It’s not an affiliate link, but
it will let Cronometer know that Bite Size
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Vegan sent you.
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Please share this video around to help men
take hold of their health. Be sure to subscribe
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to the channel to not miss out on the rest
of the Men’s Health Series.
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To support free education like this, please
see the support links below or click the Nugget
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Army icon or the link in the sidebar.
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Now go live vegan, get pissed about your prostate,
and I’ll see you soon.
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So even though vegan men tend to have significantly
higher testosterone levels, than both vegetarians
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and meat-eaters—which can be a risk factor
for prostate cancer, the reason plant-based
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diets appear to reverse the progression of
prostate cancer may be due to how low their
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IGF-1 drops. High testosterone, yet low cancer.
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The bottom line… is that male or female,
just eating vegetarian did not seem to cut
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it—didn’t do their body many favors. It
looks like to get a significant drop in cancer-promoting
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growth hormone levels one really has to move
towards eliminating animal products altogether.
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