A break in the mainstream's PSA paranoia… I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Prostate cancer screening is USELESS. Strong words, I know - but time and again science has proven me right. As you may already know, I've written quite a bit about this subject in the past (both in Real Health and in the Daily Dose) - including referencing one Reuters online article which stated: "Men who receive prostate cancer screening and treatment DO NOT APPEAR TO GAIN A SURVIVAL BENEFIT (emphasis added) compared to men who do not…" And my advice to skip the PSA (prostate-specific antigen) and other tests aimed at detecting prostate cancer isn't confined to print. I also counseled hundreds of my patients to avoid prostate cancer screening during the years I was in private practice. Why? Because the side effects of the mainstream's slash-and-burn approach to prostate cancer - which in most cases is employed far, far earlier than necessary - are often worse than the disease itself! I'm not kidding. The most common form of modern prostate surgery involves jamming a quarter-inch-thick pipe half a foot or so up your urethra (yep, you read that right), then frying your prostate with a hot wire loop. Not a lot of fun. But even less fun than the operation are the likely side effects: Impotence and urinary incontinence. I'm telling you, unless your cancer is severely advanced, you don't want any part of the solutions involving a scalpel or other surgical tools. That's not to say that radiation treatment for prostate cancer is much better. And both radiation and chemotherapy can leave you tired and haggard - and definitely compromise your immune system, leaving you vulnerable to potentially deadly infections. These facts don't stop most conventional doctors from pushing the PSA test, subsequent biopsies, and all manner of invasive, damaging treatments for prostate cancer cases that may never progress enough to kill. But there may be hope for change on the horizon… A recent New York Times article recapped a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association which showed that in more than half of subject men with elevated PSA (prostate-specific antigen), those levels RETURNED TO NORMAL in subsequent tests! This means that doctors who are recommending biopsies based on results of a single test may be needlessly traumatizing (both physically and emotionally) patients because of perfectly normal fluctuations in PSA. The article went on to reveal that such biopsies were negative in approximately 70 percent of cases in which PSA was measured at up to four times what mainstream medicine would consider "worrisome." Now, this kind of high-placed media coverage is encouraging - it means that some common sense on the subject of prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment is finally penetrating the mainstream. But it's hard to get too happy about it. After all, it may be another decade before meaningful change in the way we deal with prostate cancer is realized… I wonder how many more good men will be wearing diapers - or will be unable to have sexual relations - before it finally happens? ************************* The woes of wolfing… Here's one for the "Duh!" file: Research shows that folks who gobble down their grub faster at mealtimes are more likely to suffer from heartburn and GERD (gastro-esophageal reflux disease) that those who savor their repasts at a less canine rate. To this, I say… Growing up, didn't your mother always tell you this kind of thing? Maybe not in exactly that way, with the medical speak about GERD and all that, but she surely told you to "chew your food," or "put down the silverware after every bite," or other such pearls designed to keep our bellies agreeably and efficiently processing our meals so we didn't end up with tummy-aches. Of course she did. What amazes me is the fact that we need an official study to prove the worth of this most basic motherly tenet… Think about it: Some college, drug company, medical organization, or other entity actually spent good money (through grants of your tax dollars, no doubt) to tell us that eating too fast causes an upset stomach! What's next, a study on the medical downsides of wearing our shoes on the wrong feet? Our moms told us that one, too - but why take it at face value? WE NEED A STUDY! I'm not even going to dignify this absurd research by spelling out its findings - if anyone reading this now wasn't already aware of the correlation between wolfing down food and indigestion, heaven help us. These kinds of conclusions should be obvious to anyone with half a brain… Or a mother. Passing on the PSA,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD | 
