Prostate Cancer Prevention
Like many men over 50, I’ve been getting PSA (prostate specific antigen) screening annually as part of my medical check up. PSA is an indicator of prostate health and high levels indicate possible prostate cancer. Last winter, my PSA shot up to 5.9 which was a concern to my doctor as any value over 4.0 is in the gray area. We agreed to retest in several months and if my PSA values were still in the gray area or worse, then the next step would be to go in for a biopsy.
I did some research into prostate cancer and possible prevention. Upon my research, I decided to add tomatoes to my diet because there was some indication, although not extremely strong scientific evidence without a doubt, that lycopene, n antioxidant found in tomatoes had a role in decreasing PSA values which in turn prevent prostate cancer. I never really ate much tomatoes before other than the odd slice in burgers and pizza so this would be a change.
To make it slightly more challenging, lycopene is apparently more bioavailable to the body when tomatoes are cooked rather than eaten raw unlike most vegetables which are considered healthier when raw. Personally I like raw tomatoes compared to cooked but I decided to add one whole tomato with every single dinner I cooked at home. I also decided to take a ginseng (Korean red) 500 mg capsule during each breakfast and dinner as well.
Tomatoes And Ginseng For Prostate Cancer Prevention
So the challenge for me was whether I could sustain this new tomato every day diet change for the long term. This would mean I would have to buy plenty of tomatoes during my grocery shopping as well as a bottle of ginseng each month. Within a few days, I found that this dietary change was pretty easy since I just thought of the tomatoes as part of a healthy diet which includes lots of vegetables anyway. The ginseng was pretty easy too and it was not costly at about $10 per month which I can handle. Another bonus of taking ginseng apparently is better sexual function in men so a double benefit certainly doesn’t hurt.
So today I went back to get the latest PSA blood test results from my doctor and the PSA value was 3.0 which is a significant drop from the previous 5.9 value. This was very good news since again anything under 4.0 is considered pretty good.
My doctor doesn’t think that my tomatoes and ginseng regimen caused this drop in PSA value but he could not explain why it dropped. He asked if I did any activity like biking which could have irritated the prostate to result in a spike to 5.9 in January and I told him that the only activities I did just before that January test was snow skiing and swimming, neither which irritate the prostate.
So I’ll get rechecked again when my next annual medical checkup is up. In the meantime, am I going to stop this tomatoes and ginseng regimen just because my doctor doesn’t think it was any significance to my prostate health?
Heck NO!
