Supplements Exposed: What Really Works For Prostate Health

Introduction to Supplements and Lifestyle 0:00

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Prostate Cancer Summit. I am your host, Doctor Geo Espinosa, and it is my pleasure to introduce to you the next speaker, me. I will talk to you and hopefully inform you and educate you on dietary supplements as it relates to prostate cancer. There's a couple of ways I want to take this information to you, and kind of I want to break it down. One is that please understand that before you start looking for dietary supplements as a cure for prostate cancer, which honestly, I'm not sure that there is a cure with dietary supplements, you really have to consider dietary approaches, a plant based diet that may or may not include the right types of meats, unprocessed foods, and continuous and consistent physical exercise.

If you decide to take only supplements for prostate cancer and exclude the important lifestyle measures that include diet, exercise, I would say stress management and sleep good quality sleep, then I think you're shortchanging yourself. And I don't think that, supplements will work like you want them to work. You see supplements work synergistically with other lifestyle methods, so if you read anything on the internet, if you read anything anywhere saying, well, this supplement cures prostate cancer, this supplement, you know, lowers PSA to zero.

This supplement, you know, help me cure my advanced prostate cancer. Then you need to run away and probably look the other way. There is no supplement that cures prostate cancer. That said, there are some that may help improve and optimize your overall situation. Despite the diagnosis of prostate cancer. Let me explain. When you're trying to identify which dietary supplements will help you after a prostate cancer diagnosis is less about, well, like what supplement or what botanical, what herb will help me?

Who will help kill cancer cells? It's not really about that. We don't know what supplement helps kill cancer cells. The goal is more like how can we et? How can we create a microenvironment around the tumor that is hostile and inhospitable to cancer cells? That is the ultimate goal because you see, it's not only about finding the prostate cancer. Is the cancer not moving and not replicating, not doubling up to rapidly and not moving around to other tissues where then it could be life threatening.

So it's all about the microenvironment of the tumor. So everything I'll say to you is with regards to that goal in mind, before I tell you which supplements might be good for prostate cancer and create a microenvironment that's inhospitable to cancer, let me tell you about things you want to stay away from. There are some supplements and formulas out there that promote the idea that it reduces your PSA. Now, some of them actually do reduce PSA. Back in the late 1990s, early 2000, there was this prostate supplement formula called PC spares.

It's no longer in the market and it is no longer in the market under that name, PC space. Well, the reason why they took it out of the market is because they found out that, this particular supplement had all kinds of natural ingredients on the label. But when you go to test it, it actually had, a synthetic, estrogenic compound called des DS.

Supplements to Avoid: PSA-Lowering Claims 4:18

So it actually had estrogen in it. And of course, when you take something like estrogen, that's going to reduce your PSA because that counters the, testosterone. So now it's under all sorts of different names, but it still seems like there's this PC space out there that people are taking, from, I don't know how they get it. Maybe over the counter, or on the internet or overseas somewhere, if they supplement, if a dietary supplement sold as a dietary supplement drops your PSA to a significant amount, let's just say a PSA that I don't know starts at nine.

And and it's like one or a PSA that goes down to zero. Any supplements that drastically drops PSA likely has DS in it. It's A88 synthetic estrogen compound you want. You don't want to take that. And if you want to drop your PSA with, an estrogenic compound or a anything that drops your PSA by that much, talk to your doctor about it. Maybe there's a pharmaceutical drugs that will help you with that purpose. Okay. So stay away from anything that promotes to drop PSA and if you take something that dramatically drops PSA, I'm not saying that doesn't lower PSA.

There's many supplements that can possibly drop PSA, but not by such an amount. That would not make sense. If it's too good to be true, it is too good to be true. The other supplement that's found in supplements is a mineral is zinc, which is actually really good for prostate cancer. So, there's a lot of studies in the kidney indicating that zinc might be a really good thing for men fighting with prostate cancer. There seems to be a significant, depletion of zinc in the body in men with prostate cancer compared to men who, don't have prostate cancer.

And, there's a lot of zinc activity in the prostate. So zinc is a very good thing, is good for your immune system. However, the poison is in the dose. I would be very careful in taking zinc over 100mg a day. That's an astronomical amount. So when you look at your multi supplement, your multi your multivitamin and you look at other supplements that you take and some of them may have zinc, just make sure that that doesn't exceed 100mg. It should not. So for example when I recommend zinc to patients I recommend around 15 to 30mg of zinc a day if they go up to 60.

I'm not nervous. I don't like my patients and people that I that I, that I educate on this to go beyond 60mg. There's just no need okay. So be aware of that. Lastly folic acid, folic acid you do not want. First of all, you may not want any folic acid from a supplement in your body. You could have the natural type of folic acid called natural methyl tetra folate. And that's the natural type that actually can be good for you. But you don't want folic acid. So a study looked at, a group of patients who took, I believe, I want to say, 800 micrograms of folic acid.

And that actually increased the risk of prostate cancer in the group that was taking folic acid. It could be that the folic at the amount of folic acid was just too high. And it also could be that the type of folic acid in folic acid, which is a synthetic, mineral, vitamin, as opposed to the natural form, methyl methyl tetra, fully it could be that that might have kind of ignite things more and make things worse. Prostate cancer perspective. So don't take folic acid in a supplement form. Be careful with taking, foods that are fortified and with folic acid.

Oftentimes those are grains that are fortified with folic acid. I would not eat many of those. And I would take methyl tetra folate. If you're going to take any type of folic acid or any type of fully. All right. Now let's talk about which supplements might be useful. Right. Which supplements might be useful before we say which supplements might be useful. Let me say this. I'm actually, co-founder and medical director of a company that devotes itself on lifestyle medicine for men after prostate cancer called X, Y wellness.

You may have heard or seen x, y wellness in the summit, and so that's a disclosure. So I think that some supplements may actually help. And the way I want to break this down for you is what's a supplement. What's a dietary supplement. And I know that, dietary supplements are considered natural and they are to some degree, but it depends on what you define as natural. Is it something that we go to our backyard and pull the bark and the leaves and create a tea from, or is it something that's processed to some degree

Key Supplements for Inflammation and Immune Support 9:19

made into a pill and then that's what you consume. So the latter is what we talk about, when we say, natural dietary supplements, which may or may not be as natural because it is processed and it has to be processed for it to make into a pill. So that's that. But what is a dietary supplement? When we say when we talk about dietary supplements, what are we referring to? We're referring to. For the most part, just to make things simple, at least for your purpose, is we're referring to, herbs or things that come from a tree or plant, whether it's the roots, the barks, or the leaves of nature.

Right. We also referring to vitamins and we also referring to as minerals. So in at least for this purpose, we're referring to, things that come from a tree, things that are a vitamin or a mineral. And maybe there's a fourth component there which are medicinal mushrooms, medicinal mushrooms. They also an important part of this conversation. So these are the four things. Remember when we were trying to figure out okay, what are we trying to accomplish as it relates to prostate cancer. We're trying to create a microenvironment that's hostile to cancer diet and good quality lifestyle.

And sleep comes first. And what else can work synergistically to accomplish this goal? That's the goal. And what we're trying when we're talking about a a microenvironment hostile to tumor cells, what we're really saying is biochemically in your body, right. Which ingredients do several things. Which ingredients reduces the over production of inflammatory markers. So reducing chronic and low grade inflammation. This is not the inflammation when you, sprain your ankle. Right. And you see your your ankle swell up.

That's not what we're talking about. That's an acute situation where now the inflammatory process is part of the healing process. That's not what I'm trying to accomplish here. I'm talking about chronic low grade inflammation, inflammatory biomarkers. For, you know, these things are, you know, interleukin six and, NF kappa B, these are technical terms that don't really matter, but we're trying to modify the amount of chemicals, these inflammatory chemicals that are produced. So that is one. Number two, what can help optimize your immune system when your immune system is just asleep or weakened.

That provides a breeding ground for cancer cells. So you want your your immune system to be optimally strong, particularly those those that are called the natural killer cells NK cells. These kills, these cells need to be activated and they need to look for cancer cells. They need to identify cancer cells and take care of it, eat them up, gobble them up, or whatever it is that they do. So we want an a strong immune system that is part of the micro tumor environment that we're trying to create, that is hostile to to the tumor cells.

Number three, we want balanced antioxidants in the body, balanced and antioxidants. What does that mean. Well your body produces through normal activity. What's called free radicals. These free radicals can go into the DNA and cause some sort of havoc in there and cause the cells to break apart and divide uncontrollably. Some of that free radicals, some of that free radicals production is actually important for health. Once again, just like inflammation is important for health. And, you know, many other things, that cholesterol is important for health.

And everybody is trying to just reduce cholesterol, some free radical formation and what's called oxidative stress, which is what free radicals cause can be useful and necessary for just, you know, health purposes. Again, overproduction of oxidative stress. Too much free radicals can be a problem. So you need important ingredients to stave off these, overproduction of free radicals. When I say balanced antioxidants, I mean that you need antioxidants that kind of work together synergistically. Okay?

They kind of work together to help get rid of free radicals. In other words, if you just decide to take a look, I'm only going to take vitamin C, nothing else. I'm only going to take vitamin C. I heard vitamin C is an antioxidant. I'm only going to take vitamin C, then that may not work. And that may be actually counterproductive because actually too much vitamin C consumption orally can actually cause free radicals and oxidative stress unless is taken with other vitamins. Things like vitamin E and, alpha lipoic acid and a few others.

So antioxidants that come from plants, from herbs, from vitamins and from minerals can be super useful here. And that's part of the hostile microenvironment that we're trying to create. So that's number three. Number four you need a strong liver that the liver is one of the most important organs in the body. And I hate to say that because, you know, the brain is important in many other parts of the body is important. Liver is very important. It needs to detoxify the junk that comes in your body so that some of the, environmental factors that you consume or you breathe in does not cause problems in cancer.

So your body, your liver needs to convert these, chemicals that are toxic into nontoxic forms that your body can get rid of through the urine or through fecal matter through sweat or something like that. So a good detoxification system, it primarily with the proper health of the liver is very important. So liver and detoxification aspects to our goal here. It's very important. So what are the things that we can consume from a dietary supplement that may help? Okay. Let's talk about the things that help you, reduce inflammation.

Chronic, right. Chronic low grade inflammation. And there's a lot of things on the internet, on the internet that talk about this. I'm going to give you my big three botanicals that I think are very important for this purpose. Number one, actually there's going to be four. How about four is four right. With you. Let's do four right again. You look at the internet, you said, well there's ten things. There's 12. Sure, I'm sure there is. But, there has to be like, if you cannot take. And I know some of you are, because I see you in my office.

Some of you take, you know, 100 pills a day and you're happy with that, but that's just not sustainable. And I think that what you're trying to do is more targeted. So the top four botanicals that I think are helpful to reduce chronic inflammation is curcumin, which comes from turmeric or turmeric. Like my friend Eric Yarnell, let's say. And you probably saw him on the summit, that, you know, we want to we want the whole route, not just the curcumin. I believe we want turmeric, but with a little bit more concentration of all the what's called, humanoids.

These are active ingredients that are strong, anti-inflammatory. And you know what? A lot of the studies have been done on humanoids. So you want curcumin? Very powerful. Anti-inflammatory to me is, it's it's it's a no brainer to get a decent amount of curcumin from turmeric or turmeric with a decent amount of curcumin, from a dietary supplement. The other is quercetin, quercetin, quercetin. You find, let's say, is an ingredient found in onions and leeks. And it's it's a very good anti-inflammatory.

And a lot of studies have shown to have that, serve as that purpose, and be very good for, for the prostate. So that's quercetin. The third is ginger or ginger extract, I think. Ginger. Well, ginger and curcumin. Turmeric, they are part of the same family. So these are all roots and very strong anti-inflammatory. Many benefits from taking ginger and ginger extract and I think that is a very useful, botanical when you're trying to fight or nourish yourself after prostate cancer. And lastly. Basilica, basilica Buzz Williams, an herb that comes from India and it's oftentimes found in formulas for knee health and, osteoarthritis.

Right. So anything that supports joint health, you often find Buzz Williams in it. Interestingly, Buzz Willie actually is a excellent anti-inflammatory and may help for the purposes that you care about, too, in terms of reducing chronic acute, chronic low grade inflammation. So Buzz Williams, one that is not, oftentimes used in patients who, from any type of cancer. But I think it's a very useful botanical. So those are my top four curcumin or turmeric quercetin buzz Williams and ginger. The next, the next.

The next element of, creating this microenvironment is your immune system. What can we do for your immune system to keep it strong? Well, there's a few of those. And one is, so let's talk about the botanicals as well. Botanical wise, we're talking about, grape seed extract, which also serves as an antioxidant. Grape seed extract. Excellent botanical. One study showed that there was a significant decrease in prostate cancer, in, a group of people that they followed for a long time. Only those that consumed grape seed extract and, not really with others that consumed other type of supplements.

So grape seed extract, I like medicinal mushrooms quite a lot for, for immune purposes. This medicinal mushrooms really important. Which ones? Well, the truth is, I like them all. But if we if we're going to get down to it. And again, you're only going to take about so many pills I like, reishi mushroom, also known as gano derma reishi mushroom. Excellent medicinal. Mushroom. With a lot of research behind supporting the fact that, hey, this is a good, mushroom to take for immune purposes, even in people.

And one Cochrane report, that would say, that are taking their on the chemotherapy. So reishi mushroom is really good. Another one is, HCC or active? Active, correlated. Active. Hexo's correlated compound. That's what HCC stands for. And HCC is that have a lot of research for primarily coming from Japan, again, showing, great immune activity, particularly stimulating NK cells, natural killer cells. So, reishi mushrooms are very good to others that are my favorite one is Andrew Griffiths, Andrew Griffiths great literature and research on Andrew Griffiths as it relates to natural killer cells and, other type of immune cells and stimulating them and keeping them healthy.

And the other is magnolia bark, magnolia bark from, immune perspective. These are my main either mushrooms that I prescribe. These are the main ingredients found at Xai wellness. There might be others, however, that are not. I don't prescribe as often because there's, again, there's only so many things to prescribe. And if you start taking too many pills, it becomes too much. Because at the at the end of the day, what you want is a sustainable program. So you don't want to start a program that you can't continue because it's just too many pills.

Right? So but I have to say, other mushrooms like,

Vitamin E, Antioxidants, and Liver Support 22:08

agaric is actually I do use a Garrix, which is, button mushrooms, pretty much the mushrooms that you consume in a meal. I like that in, a Garrix blasted that Blasi. Which is the right term, that's used and that I use in dietary supplements. One study showed that. So I use a Garrick is primarily in men after prostate cancer surgery to try to reduce the risk of a recurrence. Once studies show that a Garrick is helps with, slowing the process of a recurrence after prostate cancer treatment. So I primarily use a Garrick as in that situation, and that's how I provide it and prescribe it.

By the way, who if you're a true geek about these things, then I know some of you are. If you sign up at Doctor Goal.com, that's my website. I'll give you references for all these things. And, again, in this more information and zai wellness. So a Garrick is others that I don't prescribe as often, but sometimes I do. Honestly. Is turkey tail is a mushroom. Additional mushroom cloud. Turkey tail. Again. Excellent. For, immune purposes and use used often actually in cancer therapy is turkey tail. So I love turkey tail.

Chaga is another one that, again, I don't prescribe often, but sometimes I do, depending on the situation. So Chaga is another excellent botanical for that purpose. For immune, vitamins and minerals include vitamin D, vitamin C, vitamin E, and I'm going to talk a little bit more about vitamin E in a little while. So stay with me on that. They're all very important. And they work synergistically, to promote good immune system. And zinc, zinc is incredibly important for prostate health and for immune health.

So these are the main vitamins and minerals that I think you should consider. I told you, I'm going to talk about vitamin E in a in a moment. So I'm going to do that now if that's okay with you. Vitamin E is tricky. And I invite a dollar for every email I get or some comment, from my podcast, the Doctor Geo Prostate podcast on, questions about vitamin E, is it more harmful? Can an increase the risk of prostate cancer? I read something on the internet. Here's the deal with vitamin E. Maybe I should have mentioned that in the beginning when I told you, be careful with some supplements and, that you should be aware of maybe vitamin A, certain type of vitamin E is one of them.

There is a study that shows that synthetic vitamin E known as D. So delta L, alpha tocopherol, vitamin E, DL alpha tocopherol, vitamin E can increase the risk of prostate cancer. And that's a study, over published over 20 years ago. Yes. Synthetic DL alpha tocopherol you should stay away from. So you should look in the ingredient list. And and if you see DL, I also took off RA. Then you should stay away from that. But if you take mix took off and I'm trying to keep it the language very simple because we could go very deep into biochemistry and scientific jargon that I don't think you care about, but it's very important for you to know so that you can make decisions with confidence and clarity.

If you take mix took off Rose, which includes alpha, to call for beta, tocopherol, delta, a few others that works better together and that's more natural, particularly those that are, part of the mix of controls is gamma tocopherol. And we want a lot of gamma takaful, because several studies have shown that if you don't have any gamma tocopherol, it's not going to help if you have gamma to control. That's one of the it's just a family of vitamin E that will help. So you want to mix a couple roles with enough gamma to control.

That's the takeaway of this story. So when you look for a supplement, make sure it's mix of controls and make sure that it has. Gamma took off from very important and stay away from DL alpha tocopherol vitamin E okay. So if you take the natural one it helps just like folic acid. If you take folate methyl tetra folate that's good. Don't take folic acid. If you take if you take a mix tocopherol with gamma tocopherol, then that's better than the synthetic version called DL alpha tocopherol. Okay. So that's that.

And that's from an immune perspective. From an antioxidant perspective, it's very similar. Many, many of the botanicals that I've spoken about do have, amazing antioxidant activity as well. Curcumin does grapeseed extract does, and Andrew grasses, magnolia bark, they all have excellent, antique oxygen activity. And they work well from that purpose. You want the mix. You want the mix of the vitamins alpha tocopherol, vitamin E, vitamin C, sometimes. Vitamin D as well. A mixed alpha to control. These are all excellent, excellent antioxidants.

So what do we do for liver health? Make sure your liver is nice and strong. Well, there's a few botanicals for that. One is milk thistle, milk thistle it's not is a non dairy product. So don't worry. Nothing to do with dairy. Milk thistle. It's one of the main botanicals used for, herbal. Excuse me, for liver health. Cassandra. Cassandra is very good. Another botanical, which is, Zander berries. That's a Chinese botanical. Excellent for liver health. We want to keep your liver nice and strong. I use glutathione on, what's called reduced file.

Beautifying is a chemical that you find in the liver to help you detoxify. So we use reduced glutathione. You can use some NAC net, and acetylcysteine, which helps with the production of glutathione on. Again, this is not something that I always recommend, but some patients will take it. I say okay, that's fine. You can take an AC. I choose to use reduced to file,

Supplement Strategies by Prostate Cancer Stage 28:38

for liver health and detoxification purposes. So I think that is so we covered antioxidants, immune activity, anti-inflammatory and liver health and detoxification. If you do these things from a dietary supplement perspective, again, I don't know of a supplement that cures cancer. That I don't think that exist. But if you, take these type of supplements, along with the right lifestyle, you'll be in good shape. I need to add one other thing. This. The way I see it, as it relates to prostate cancer, there's three, three parts to prostate cancer.

One is the guy that's, that's diagnosed with low risk prostate cancer. This is a guy, you know, active surveillance, probably Gleason six, low risk, hopefully never dies from it. That guy needs, pretty much all the supplements he can benefit from other supplements that I mentioned. Or use perhaps perhaps a regimen. One from Equine Wellness. That's those are the those those are the core supplements and nutrients to take if you're on a, active surveillance. The second group is the group that's been diagnosed with some sort of intermediate prostate cancer. Right.

So this is, you know, Gleason seven, you know, three plus 4 or 4 plus three, or even eight, let's say who get who gets treated for prostate cancer. So that group, I would add all the ingredients I just mentioned plus aggregates mushroom to that group. Okay. So this is, this is post treatment or post-surgery group. And that group, we want to try and minimize the risk of a recurrence. Of course. Then the third group is a little bit more advanced. Prostate cancer. And in the third group they have a Gleason eight that's advanced or Gleason nine or or recurrences has recurred.

They are likely going to be on androgen deprivation therapy. Right. Also known as hormone therapy in that group we need to do two things. We need to minimize the side effects of the hormone deprivation therapy. And that is everything from bone health and osteoporosis. Prevention like weakening of the bones, cardiovascular metabolic syndrome, where kind of you get you get kind of fatter, which increases inflammation and increases all sorts of things. That, cognition and memory and ability to think quickly, that can happen.

So we want to reduce the risk of those side effects. With that goal in mind, there's a few botanicals that I use again, to reduce the risk of those side effects. I use, a botanical called Bark Copa, which is a great, herb for memory, but Copa, and cognition and brain health, we use acetyl l-carnitine, which helps with heart health, helps with the mitochondria, which is a very important element of helping people with with cancer. So acetal or quarantine? We use, we use ashwagandha. Ashwagandha is an excellent botanical, I think it's one of the best botanicals out there.

A lot of research around it. Good for memory, good for sleep, good for energy. Just to have more energy. So, ashwagandha. We use Hooper. Zinn, a Hooper Zinn, a excellent, comes from Irish moss. Great to for the prevention of of, Alzheimer's. Just good for cognition. Overall. Hooper's seen a, we also use, we also use, McKenna, which is, white, like the white bean. That helps with feeling. Just feeling better. It helps with the production of, dopamine through L-dopa. Again. Stay with me here, L-dopa.

L-dopa is just, a product, a chemical that helps with the production of dopamine. It just provides, like the dopamine in your body that makes you feel, you know, good. Again, if you're on a hormonal therapy, oftentimes you're not feeling your best, because, again, you have no testosterone. So you want to, compensate for that. So, McKenna is excellent. You want to magnesium? Magnesium, magnesium is very important. And magnesium is also important for bone health as well. So, because it works synergistically with calcium to improve bone health.

And again, when you're an adult, one of the things that we're concerned about is, it's weakening of the bone or, or osteoporosis. Again, these are for men on androgen deprivation therapy. Another mineral that I like to use for men to help them with, with bone health is boron. Boron. I know everybody always thinks calcium, calcium, calcium, calcium. And I think we are barking up the wrong tree honestly. Because yes, calcium is very important and very good. But there's other minerals that are important for, the absorption of calcium and for calcium to even do what they do.

And one of those minerals is boron. There's a good paper, on the internet. It's scientific paper, with a very, unique name, that says boron is not boring. So boring is not boring. Great paper. But you definitely want to try to get boron into into your system. Boron is an excellent mineral, particularly for bone health. And it doesn't take that much boron, you know, anywhere between three to, 3 to 6mg is all you need is a really tiny amount of boron that's necessary. So boron, excellent for bone health.

And I think that's those are the many ingredients that we use. Again for more information, scientific references. You want to, contact me at Doctor Geo uh.com or x y wellness wellness company completely devoted, to help men with lifestyle and nutrition purposes for, after a prostate cancer diagnosis. I hope this particular segment of the prostate cancer summit clears things up a little bit and, and educate you and, you found clarity as to look, I need to stay away from certain things, for sure, but I think I need some other things that might be good for me and help me really thrive after prostate cancer in, you know, hopefully see prostate cancer as an opportunity, as an opportunity to be healthier than prior than before your diagnosis.

So you get to improve your prognosis and likely be healthier than before your diagnosis. So I am glad you're here. I'm glad that you're watching, and your theme tune to this summit. I think that, we did our best to bring the best information, the best experts out here, to provide you with clarity and confidence so that you can live your best life moving forward. If you have never had prostate cancer, great. Do all the things to prevent it. And if you are a female, it's likely you will never get prostate cancer.

That's one guarantee, but if you're a female with a loved one, a husband, a brother, an uncle, father, thank you for being here. You're a very important part of of the prostate cancer journey. So thank you for all you do. That's all I have for you is Doctor Geo Espinosa, your host for the prostate cancer summit. And I hope you're enjoying the summit and keep watching because we have more to come. Doctor Geo Espinosa here, signing off. Much love to you all.