Prostate Princess

Broccoli and Tomatoes for Prostate Cancer

In an article published in the February 2007 edition of The Natural Standard, entitled Tomatoes and Broccoli for Prostate Cancer, researchers at the University of Illinois and James Cancer Hospital along with Solove Research Institute evaluated combinations of tomato and broccoli.

Two-hundred six male Copenhagen rats were fed diets containing 10% tomato, 10% broccoli, 5% tomato plus 5% broccoli (5:5 combination), 10% broccoli plus 10% tomato (10:10 combination) powders, or lycopene (23 or 224 nmol/g diet) for approximately 22 weeks starting one month prior to receiving the tumor implants.

The researchers then compared the effects of the diet to surgical castration or finasteride. Castration reduced prostate weights, tumor area and tumor weight, whereas finasteride reduced prostate weights, but had no effect on tumor area or weight. Either way, I’m thinking surgical castration???? Not an option!

Lycopene at 23 or 224 nmol/g of the diet insignificantly reduced rumor weights by 7% or 185, respectively. Whereas tomato reduced weight by 34%, Broccoli decreased tumor weights by 42%. However, the 10:10 combination caused a 52% decrease!

The researchers concluded that the combination of tomato and broccoli was more effective at slowing tumor growth than tomato or broccoli alone, supporting public health recommendations to increase the intake of a variety of plant components.

As an aside, the receive the highest benefits of lycopene, tomatoes should be cooked. The process of cooking the tomatoes releases higher amounts of lycopene. So guys, give this a try. What can it do besides, give you additional nutritional benefits and it tastes great too and in the process, should you have prostate cancer, it should help to reduce the size of the tumor.

Every little bit you can give to your body to help it fight the cancer that doesn’t have to do with chemotherapy or synthetic drugs, I would think would be at the top of the list of priorities.

There is significant amounts of evidence-based research to prove changing your diet and lifestyle at the onset of prostate cancer, or any cancer for that matter, can either slow the progression of or prevent cancer all together. But that is the subject of another post!

Until then, as always……

Karen, the Prostate Princess