Consuming Milk Increase Your Risk for Prostate Cancer?

gaze

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Me: Do you think the articles that are claiming dairy causes breast and prostate cancer have any truth to them?
Ray Peat: Most of the evidence suggests that it increases prostate cancer but decreases other cancers, especially colon, and is protective in other ways.
Me again: If milk increases prostate cancer risk, why do you think its safe to consume?
Ray Again: If it decreases many other risks, it’s healthful.

in this email exchange, ray himself seems to admit it increases prostrate cancer risk
 
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Apple

Apple

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in this email exchange, ray himself seems to admit it increases prostrate cancer risk
Thanks for sharing this info
I guess I will just save some milk for those cases where I need to neutralize oxalates...
 

GelatinGoblin

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Thanks for sharing this info
I guess I will just save some milk for those cases where I need to neutralize oxalates...
no man warm milk (calcium) with some white sugar (sucrose) and maybe a cup of salty water ( with sea salt ) afterwards (salt) (also Sodium reduces the opioid Caesin thing aswell in the digestive system, don't remember the details, basically milk makes some Opiod receptor things in the stomach and it's bad mkay, salt reduces that generally) is a God send in a Hypothyroid state. Specifically those 3 (together or not together) are very good as per Peat. Very good "backup" food for me. Also what Oxalates do you need to counter? if you make the leafy green water you can just add some baking soda during the boiling process and boil well for somewhere around 20 min.
 
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GelatinGoblin

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there's like 2 longer threads with the answer in them, they will give you enough insight and decide on it for yourself. I say it is worth it. Just get 3% milk or full fat whatever you digest best without any of those poison added minerals or vitamins or thickeners (carrageenan, well known for inflammation and cancer effects) (which are all typically used in the lower fat milk, and drink in your rhythm and whatever brand you digest best.
 
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Apple

Apple

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there's like 2 longer threads with the answer in them, they will give you enough insight and decide on it for yourself. I say it is worth it. Just get 3% milk or full fat whatever you digest best without any of those poison added minerals or vitamins or thickeners (carrageenan, well known for inflammation and cancer effects) (which are all typically used in the lower fat milk, and drink in your rhythm and whatever brand you digest best.
I totally understand that and ok with sugar and salt but it is not the first time I notice some pain in prostate after several cups of milk daily ( or sometimes even after cheese ). So I'll just spare some milk for tea or coffee. It is just safer... or for high oxalate foods if I binge on them occasionally( tea, chocolate, prunes, gelatine, sweet potato , carrots, spinage...)
 
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Mito

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Just get 3% milk or full fat
There doesn’t appear to be any advantage to full fat milk in relation to prostate cancer.

Conclusion: In conclusion, whole milk consumption after prostate cancer diagnosis was associated with increased risk of recurrence, particularly among very overweight or obese men. Men with prostate cancer who choose to drink milk should select non-fat or low-fat options.

“Our data suggest a positive association between high-fat milk intake and prostate cancer progression among patients diagnosed with localized prostate cancer. Further studies are warranted to investigate this association and elucidate the mechanisms by which high-fat milk intake may promote prostate cancer progression.”

Conclusions: Total dairy products intake have no significant impact on increased all cancer mortality risk, while low total dairy intake even reduced relative risk based on the non-linear model. However, whole milk intake in men contributed to elevated prostate cancer mortality risk significantly. Furthermore, a linear dose-response relationship existed between increase of whole milk intake and increase of prostate cancer mortality risk.
 

tankasnowgod

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was drinking 2 - 3 glasses of milk (1 % fat) a day for a week and developed a slight pain in the prostate area which disappered as soon as I quitted. Though small amount with cofee/cocoa doesn't cause any problem.

Does Consuming Milk Increase Your Risk for Prostate Cancer?

I see only the weakest of potential links, nothing causal.

The article you linked cites the Physicians Health Study. This is yet another long term study where they assess people's diets once a year, and then draw conclusions based on that data.

Of course, if you notice pain from consuming a food that ceases when you stop eating it, that is better feedback than studies that send out dietary questionnaires to people once a year that ask "Hey, what all did you eat the past year? Please answer this question accurately."
 
B

Blaze

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was drinking 2 - 3 glasses of milk (1 % fat) a day for a week and developed a slight pain in the prostate area which disappered as soon as I quitted. Though small amount with cofee/cocoa doesn't cause any problem.

Does Consuming Milk Increase Your Risk for Prostate Cancer?

Very curious, but perhaps there is indeed a slight increase in risk to the prostate from dairy. I know that in the china study T. Colin Cambell was switching on and off cancer growth according to him solely by increasing and decreasing the dairy protein casein.

And the below quote from Ray posted by Gaze was very revealing:

"tca300 said:
Me: Do you think the articles that are claiming dairy causes breast and prostate cancer have any truth to them?
Ray Peat: Most of the evidence suggests that it increases prostate cancer but decreases other cancers, especially colon, and is protective in other ways.
Me again: If milk increases prostate cancer risk, why do you think its safe to consume?
Ray Again: If it decreases many other risks, it’s healthful."


I guess that dairy does increase the cancer risk after all, then. Probably like others here stated , it is due to the protein and/or increases in IGF-1.
Cancer growth from dairy in the china study was eliminated when the dietary casein was lowered to a 5% macro ratio. Cancer thrived when casein was at a ratio of 20% to the other macro's. I guess we might need to balance our milk intake with other macro's like carbs to avoid overdoing the protein and increasing cancer risk. Also, I believe Mito is correct that whole fat dairy is much more problematic in this respect than low-fat dairy.
 
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GelatinGoblin

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Very curious, but perhaps there is indeed a slight increase in risk to the prostate from dairy. I know that in the china study T. Colin Cambell was switching on and off cancer growth according to him solely by increasing and decreasing the dairy protein casein.

And the below quote from Ray posted by Gaze was very revealing:

"tca300 said:
Me: Do you think the articles that are claiming dairy causes breast and prostate cancer have any truth to them?
Ray Peat: Most of the evidence suggests that it increases prostate cancer but decreases other cancers, especially colon, and is protective in other ways.
Me again: If milk increases prostate cancer risk, why do you think its safe to consume?
Ray Again: If it decreases many other risks, it’s healthful."


I guess that dairy does increase the cancer risk after all, then. Probably like others here stated , it is due to the protein and/or increases in IGF-1.
Cancer growth from dairy in the china study was eliminated when the dietary casein was lowered to a 5% macro ratio. Cancer thrived when casein was at a ratio of 20% to the other macro's. I guess we might need to balance our milk intake with other macro's like carbs to avoid overdoing the protein and increasing cancer risk. Also, I believe Mito is
correct that whole fat dairy is much more problematic in this respect than low-fat dairy.
Why? Wouldn't that decrease the Caesin macro ratio (sat fat)?

"...particularly among very overweight or obese men. ..."
Ray himself said if one is sedentary full-fat can be fattening. Add that with these Kreb Cycle Estrogenic Cortisol fuelled low metabolic champions, whose daily calorie needs are probably lower than usual you get yourself more subcutaneous fat, Krebs and Cancer


To me 3% of a specific brand in my country is the most digestible. One should find what he digests best, if it happens to be low-fat let it be low fat. But I think the most digestible milk is probably warm (heated in a pot), 3% or full fat, without any Vitamins minerals or thickeners. Variation in brand does exist.
But Idk, I guess if you are a lactase, high metabolism machine and can digest all milk it is relevant which you should drink optimally or if you have prostate problems.
 
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Blaze

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Why? Wouldn't that decrease the Caesin macro ratio (sat fat)?
I was just agreeing with Mito's statement that low fat milk may be less dangerous than full fat in respect to cancer risk. Perhaps you read too much into that which was a simple point of agreement I concurred with , and was not meant to be misconstrued with any particular macro percentage recommendations.

But since we are on the subject, you make a very good point that when we lower 1 macro's intake , by default another of the 3 total available macro percentages has been automatically increased. I would always favor an increase sugar in that case, not fat or protein.
 
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Jbird10

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Chris Masterjohn did some lengthy articles countering Campbell's very flawed China Study and casein.
 

Mito

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was drinking 2 - 3 glasses of milk (1 % fat) a day for a week and developed a slight pain in the prostate area which disappered as soon as I quitted. Though small amount with cofee/cocoa doesn't cause any problem.

Does Consuming Milk Increase Your Risk for Prostate Cancer?

Abstract​

An ongoing controversy exists regarding the effect of dairy products on prostate cancer risk in observational studies. We prospectively investigated the associations between dairy product consumption and prostate cancer risk among men in the United States. After calculating pre-diagnostic intake of individual or subgroups of dairy products using a validated food frequency questionnaire, we estimated hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for pathologically-verified cases of incident prostate cancer among men, overall, or stratified by severity. Among 49,472 men, 4134 were diagnosed with prostate cancer during an average follow-up period of 11.2 years. The median total dairy intake was 101 g/1000 kcal. Consumption of total, individual, or subgroups of dairy products was not statistically significantly associated with prostate cancer risk overall (HR = 1.05, 95% CI = 0.96–1.15 comparing the highest with lowest quartile) or stratified by severity, except for regular-fat dairy product intake with late-stage prostate cancer risk (HR = 1.37, 95% CI = 1.04–1.82 comparing the highest with lowest quartile) and 2%-fat milk intake with advanced prostate cancer risk (HR = 1.14, 95% CI = 1.02–1.28 comparing the higher than median intake with no intake group). Our findings do not support the previously reported harmful impact of dairy consumption on overall prostate cancer risk among men in the United States.
 
B

Blaze

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Chris Masterjohn did some lengthy articles countering Campbell's very flawed China Study and casein.
I too have some issues with some of Cambell's science....that being said, Ray Peat quoted saying that dairy can increase prostrate cancer risk certainly got my attention and carries much weight with me and at least in a basic sense in line with dairy cancer risk which Cambell illustrated. . And, not all of Cambell's work is flawed. And , in Cambell's defense, There are things we can learn from him. Discernment is necessary to find out what is sound and what is flawed. We all do the best we can to determine what is true and what is false in this reality. There is always controversy. Nobody has all the answers and that helps keeps me humble and non-dogmatic and keenly aware of my intellectual limitations.
 
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tankasnowgod

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in this email exchange, ray himself seems to admit it increases prostrate cancer risk

No he doesn't. He uses the phrase "the evidence suggests," not "the evidence proves" or "the evidence establishes."

Of course, cancer itself is an ill defined term, and prostate cancer tends to be one of the slowest growing and least lethal. "Wait and monitor" tends to be a great approach in this case, because even if you are diagnosed with prostate cancer in your 60s, you are likely to die of something else before it becomes a serious issue.

I guess it also depends on the way you look at it. Broda Barnes suggested the increase in heart disease was actually a success for medicine and health. Why? Because people who were dying of heart disease in their 60s and 70s indicates that they didn't die of TB in their 30s and 40s. So, in some sense, any food that helps to extend life span and health in general might lead to more cases of degenerative diseases that get diagnosed later in life, because you need to life to an older age to be diagnosed with them, in general.
 

Jbird10

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The China Study Myth - The Weston A. Price Foundation

Does Animal Protein Cause Cancer?​

The seeds of animal-food doubt were first planted early in Campbell’s career, while he was working in the Philippines on a project to help combat malnutrition. A colleague informed him of a startling trend: liver cancer was plaguing affluent Filipinos at a much higher rate than their less-wealthy counterparts—a phenomenon that, despite a slew of other lifestyle differences, Campbell believed was linked to their higher intake of animal protein.1 Bolstering his suspicions, Campbell also learned of a recent study from India showing that a high protein intake spurred liver cancer in rats, while a low protein intake seemed to prevent it.2 Intrigued by this gem of little-known research, Campbell decided to investigate the role of nutrition in cancer growth himself—an endeavor that ended up lasting several decades and producing over one hundred publications (none of which pertained to Fight Club).3

The China Study relayed Campbell’s findings with powerful simplicity. In a series of experiments, Campbell and his team exposed rats to very high levels of aflatoxin—a carcinogen produced by mold that grows on peanuts and corn—and then fed them a diet containing varying levels of the milk protein casein. In study after study, the rats eating only 5 percent of their total calories as casein remained tumor-free, while the rats eating 20 percent of their calories as casein developed abnormal growths that marked the beginning of liver cancer. As Campbell described, he could control cancer in those rodents “like flipping a light switch on and off,” simply by altering the amount of casein they consumed.4

Despite these provocative findings, Campbell wasn’t ready to declare all protein a threat to public health and stamp the peanut butter aisle with Mr. Yuk stickers. Animal protein, it turned out, seemed to be uniquely villainous. In several of his experiments, when the aflatoxin-exposed rats were fed wheat protein or soy protein in place of casein, they didn’t develop any cancer—even at the 20 percent level that proved so detrimental with casein.5 It seemed that those plant proteins were not only PETA-approved, but also the least likely to turn rat livers into tumor factories.

These findings led Campbell to his firm and famous conclusion: that all animal protein—but not plant protein—could uniquely promote cancer growth. Out with the steak, in with the tofu! But as several critics have pointed out,6,7 that proclamation required a few somersaults of logic (and maybe some cartwheels of delusion). The effects of casein—particularly isolated casein, separated from other components of dairy that often work synergistically—can’t be generalized to all forms of milk protein, much less all forms of animal protein. An impressive number of studies shows that the other major milk protein, whey, consistently suppresses tumor growth rather than promoting it, likely due to its ability to raise glutathione levels.8,9 Another of Campbell’s own studies suggests that fish protein acts as a cancer-promoter when paired with corn oil, but not when paired with fish oil—highlighting the importance of dietary context (and the neverending terribleness of vegetable oils).10

And the kicker: one of Campbell’s most relevant experiments—which sadly received no mention in The China Study—showed that when wheat gluten is supplemented with lysine to make a complete protein, it behaves exactly like casein to promote tumor growth.11 This means that animal protein doesn’t have some mystical ability to spur cancer by mere virtue of its origin in a sentient creature—just that a full spectrum of amino acids provide the right building blocks for growth, whether it be of malignant cells or healthy ones. And as any vegan who’s been asked “Where do you get your protein?” for the eight hundredth time will answer, even a plant-only diet supplies complete protein through various mixtures of legumes, grains, nuts, vegetables, and other approved vegan fare. Theoretically, a meal of rice and beans would provide the same so-called cancer-promoting amino acids that animal protein does. Indeed, Campbell’s experiments lose their relevance in the context of a normal, real-world diet opposed to the purified menu of casein, sugar, and corn oil his rats received.

But that’s only the tip of the proteinaceous iceberg. In his September 2010 article, “The Curious Case of Campbell’s Rats,”12 Chris Masterjohn ventured beyond the well lit pages of The China Study to explore the dark alleys of Campbell’s publications firsthand. And what he found regarding the low-protein rats was a far cry from the sunshine-and-lollipops descriptions we read in the book. Although rats consuming a high-casein diet were indeed developing liver cancer as Campbell described, the ones in the low-casein groups—which were portrayed as downright bright-eyed and shiny-coated in The China Study—were suffering an even worse fate. Campbell’s research actually showed that a low-protein diet increases the acute toxicity of aflatoxin, resulting in cell genocide and premature death. Because protein deficiency prevents the liver from successfully doing its detoxifying duties, less aflatoxin gets converted into cancer-causing metabolites, but the end result is massive (and eventually deadly) tissue damage.

Even the research from India that jump-started Campbell’s interest in the diet-cancer link showed that rats on a low-casein diet were dying with disturbing frequency, while the high-protein rats—tumored as they may have been—were at least staying alive.13 (It’s surprising, then, that The China Study promotes a plant-based diet to prevent cancer, when death is equally effective and requires fewer shopping trips.)

More clues for understanding the casein-cancer research come from another Indian study—this one published in the late 1980s, and examining the effects of protein in aflatoxin-exposed monkeys instead of rats.14 As with Campbell’s experiments, the monkeys were fed diets containing either 5 percent or 20 percent casein, but with one important difference: instead of being slammed with an astronomically (and unrealistically) high dose of aflatoxin, the monkeys were exposed to lower, daily doses—mimicking a real-world situation where aflatoxin is consumed frequently in small amounts from contaminated foods. In a fabulous case of scientific switcheroo, this study showed that it was the low-protein monkeys who got cancer, while the high-protein monkeys rejoiced in their tumorlessness.

This apparent paradox highlights a major problem in Campbell’s rat research: the level of aflatoxin exposure plays a critical role in how protein affects cancer growth. When the aflatoxin dose is sky high, animals eating a low-protein diet don’t get cancer because their cells are too busy dying en masse, while animals eating a higher protein diet are still consuming enough dietary building blocks for the growth of cells—whether healthy or cancerous. When the aflatoxin dose is more moderate, animals eating a low-protein diet develop cancer while their higher-protein counterparts remain in mighty fine health.

In a nutshell, the animal protein fear-mongering in The China Study stems from wildly misconstrued science. What Campbell’s rat experiments really showed wasn’t that animal protein is a vengeful macronutrient of doom, but the following:

1. High-quality protein promotes cell growth no matter where it comes from;

2. Protein deficiency thwarts the liver’s ability to detoxify dangerous substances; and

3. With more realistic doses of aflatoxin, protein is actually tremendously protective against cancer, while protein-restricted diets prove harmful.
 

Jbird10

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After reading that article section, one must conclude that Campbell perpetrated scientific fraud pushing vegan propaganda. I don't think any of the rest of his research can be trusted.

Yes the RP quote is concerning since milk is the staple of his diet. It looks like from the study posted here as a follow up it seems to be association only. It's strange that Americans go for any latest diet and freak out over multi-factoral association studies from surveys to trash food like milk the staple of a European and other cultures traditional diets for 1,000s of years. I sure wish Peat was younger and amore active explaining in depth instead of a small comment to a question. Don't get me wrong I'm grateful he helps us at all at his age.
 

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