My family knows NOTHING about my having Prostate Cancer. It would just cause them
unnecessary anguish since my Father died of it when my siblings were still in school.
So,that is why I am careful of who I tell and how much I tell so it cannot get
back to them.

Here is my story.

Cancer is a part of my families history. Starting with a Grandparent that we now 
feel sure died from cancer, there have been two Uncles, some cousins, and one of 
my own parents. This history made my doctor add PSA testing to my annual physical 
blood work long before most doctors would have started. Thus I have a longer than 
normal history of PSA readings.

When I went in for my 2001 physical I suggested to the doctor that it might be a 
good idea to get a prostate sonogram that could be used as a baseline for later 
tests, he agreed. I had it done and nothing unusual stood out except one area that 
"relatively hypervascular compared to the same area on the other side", this being 
no larger than 1cm in the largest dimension. When I had the physical, the DRE was 
negative, but my PSA came back at 5.0. The retest this time came back at 5.6 so 
the doctor said I should get a biopsy.

The biopsy was done early June 2002 with 6 cores being taken. One of the six was 
positive in 7% of the core. Talk about your "punch in the solar plexus!" But I 
had had lunch with a colleague that I found out has prostate cancer. In telling 
about his case, he also told me about someone else where we worked that had an 
even worse case, but was doing quite well. A phone call to him opened the door to 
doing my own research on the web about cancer. I also learned from him about 
Dr. Folkman's work on cancer and of a book about Dr. Folkman called Dr. Folkman's 
War by Robert Cooke, with a forward by Dr. C. Everett Koop. There was a NOVA (PBS) 
series on TV about Dr. Folkman which is well worth the time it takes to down load 
the web version. Here is the URL - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/cancer/program.html
And here is the URL for Dr. Folkman that has other interesting information on it. 
- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/cancer/

I quickly learned that if you have cancer you MUST take charge of your own 
treatment. This theme seemed to appear in at least half of the sites I found. 
Educating your self was crucial, they seemed to point out. So I did! That 
included spending several hours at the library in a large local hospital. 
My initial thought was to have the prostate removed. But the more I learned 
the more I was sure that this was NOT the best treatment. The doctors avoid 
saying it but the men in my cancer support group I go to will say that only 
the lucky have NO incontinence problems after removal.

I did a lot of "Googleing" during that early research. I quickly learned to avoid 
most of the .com's and look for .edu or .org at the end of the URL. I soon found 
PubMed and used it a lot because it had more "hard" science stuff. Where as Google 
found just too much extraneous stuff to make it efficient to sort through.

It was only a coincidence that I had started to follow the diet enunciated by the 
Drs. Eades in their book Protein Power LifePlan (PPLP) about the same time as I had 
my high PSA test. I was primarily interested in reducing my triglycerides but also 
wanted to loose some weight around my middle. But then somewhere in my research I 
read that a reduction of 10% of the persons body weight was beneficial and gave 
better long term survival. That is what I was doing following PPLP.  I wish I could 
find that reference again, BUT I have found enough other references to carbohydrate 
restriction being beneficial that I believe it is a fact. This diet has a bulletin 
board that had a lot of information about the diet at - http://bbs.eatprotein.com/ 
That site was hacked into and is down. The Eades have now gotten their new site up.
It is http://www.proteinpower.com/  and there is a forum where you can read posts
from people following the diet. It is an active group of people that have had 
success with the diet in loosing and keeping the weight off for as much as five years. 
They can answer questions about the diet and help with encouragement to follow the 
diet. Actually the diet is more about GOOD health than weight loss. I cut my 
triglycerides to a quarter of what they had been.

I also found a paper that indicated that the blood vessels that cancer needed to 
grow were "switched" on or off by a the copper in the blood. More research found 
that a reduction of something like 20% of the blood serum copper was sufficient 
to switch off the blood vessel growth. Here is the URL for the paper 
- http://www.moffitt.usf.edu/pubs/ccj/v6n5/article2.htm
Not being able to get the drug being used in the trials, I found that Zinc could do
the same thing. In searching for the effects of high doses of zinc, I found that
the only thing listed was that it reduces blood serum copper. When I checked the
effects of low copper, I found that low copper is very bad. So I started having
my blood serum copper checked so that I knew that I was not dropping too low. It
always checked well up in the acceptable range, but mostly below the mid point.

I also found a number of other "anti-cancer" supplements which had sound scientific 
basis for there use. While it is not what a researcher would do, I decided that the 
"sum might be greater than the parts" so I used a multiple attack on my cancer. I 
have self treated my cancer with the help of my Internist who provides me with the 
tests needed to monitor my condition. The Urologist, Radiologist, and Oncologist 
that I went to in the beginning all seemed to know far less about the new research 
on Prostate Cancer than I did. They were still living in the (my terms) mutilate, 
fry and poison modes of treatment. All things that have only slightly better results 
than doing NOTHING.  Go here for the abstract and a link to the full article; 
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12226149&query_hl=1 
While the "press" reported a 50% improvement in survival rates, I do not consider 
the difference between 4% dying after RP and 8% dying of cancer when nothing is done 
a really big difference. - Rather than get totally cynical over the "Medical Industry's 
Greed" I'll go back to my story. 

My next PSA after the biopsy turned out to be only 5.2. Then much to the amazement 
of my doctor, my next PSA was only 3.7 little over a month later. Another month 
later it was 3.2 and by years end it was 2.5. There was a rise to 3.0 the next 
summer but then I got it back down to 2.1 a year later. My PSA ranged from 2.4 
early in 2004 to 2.1 at the end of the year. In 2005 I got down to 1.9 in the spring
but then it went back up to 2.7 the winter of 2006. It then dropped to 2.3 in the
spring but was 3.0 in August. I had been very busy and under some stress before the 
test so that could be the cause for the higher number.

I is to early to say it has gone, but so far so good. In all this time I have never 
had any doctor, and I had several, indicate that he could feel anything at all 
during a DRE.

My answer to the weight reduction mechanism was found because I started to read 
the Protein Power BBS and found a references to this web page. 
http://www.lowcarbluxury.com/newsletter/lclnewsvol03-no04-pg2.html
The link to Sugar and Cancer was all I needed. This web page tells of the writers 
mother dying from starving because of her cancer. The cancer was consuming all the 
sugar she was eating forcing the body to break down muscle protein and body fat to 
try to survive. I have since found many references to the fact that cancer cells have 
defective metabolism and can use ONLY glucose. I am now convinced that a no carb 
(and even maybe a low carb) diet will ultimately starve any cancer cell in the 
body. That cancer could be "starved" was what I derived from Dr. Folkman's work. 
Even though he was doing it by stopping new blood vessel growth to feed the cancer, 
denying the cancer nourishment whether it is by preventing the food transport 
mechanism, new blood vessel growth, or by eliminating the food from the blood, 
still ultimately starves the cancer cells.

Actually, I simply cut my carbohydrate intake to something like 20% of what I had 
been eating. The basic theme of both books by the Drs. Eades. And that would not 
even qualify me as a "hedonist" by PPLP standards.

The diet enunciated by the Drs. Eades, has both clinical practice and successes as
well as sound science behind it. The bibliography for their second book, PPLP, has
over 400 journal research articles listed. Here are two places to find the biblio.
http://www.intergate.com/~berts8nford7/PPLP_Biblio_w_PubMed_IDs.txt
And if that is not available this site has it as several forum posts, here is the
section that the biblio is in at the bottom and on the next page.
http://ppwol.suddenlaunch3.com/index.cgi?board=resources