A blog at the MD Anderson Cancer Center’s website succinctly describes such dislocation of self-control:

As a cancer patient, it often can feel like you’ve lost control. You can’t control your diagnosis, your test results or your cancer treatment side effects. You may even feel like you’ve lost control over your work, finances and the reactions you receive from loved ones.

Wow, that’s a lot to cope with when all you want is the cancer gone from your body. For most patients, recovering their sense of control is intimately connected with recovering from their disease.

Habits that we control

Many cancer patients felt perfectly fine right up until they heard, “You have cancer.” Prior to that, they spent their days taking their health for granted. When you feel healthy, you implicitly believe you’re in control of your health—until the wake-up call that guess what? You’re not. Thus, we should not take health control for granted.

While there’s no 100% guarantee that practicing a wellness-oriented lifestyle ensures you’ll never get sick, a solid body of research into prevention assures us that we dramatically support the positive functions of our physical, mental and emotional systems. And yes, as long as those systems are working well, we ARE in control of what we put in our bodies, how we move them, when we sleep, to whom we open our hearts, etc. We can choose to initiate and practice better and better habits as an investment in protecting ourselves against diseases like prostate cancer (PCa), and in reducing the chance of disease progression.

The Prostate 8

At the close of the 2024 year, Time Magazine gave a holiday present to men’s health. It’s an article entitled “What to Know About Complementary Therapies for Prostate Cancer.” It opens by acknowledging that like all cancer patients, men with PCa may experience their own body as a battlefield over which they have little control. The article proceeds to focus on a research study of lifestyle practices that can help prostate cancer patients regain a sense of control over what’s happening in their bodies by reducing the odds of worse disease and death. “The adoption of these lifestyle factors, which the study team nicknamed the ‘Prostate 8,’ appear to be a safe and potentially effective way for people with cancer to improve the course of their treatment,” writes author Markham Heid. He enumerates eight lifestyle choices identified by the researchers, drawn from complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) evidence:

1. Exercise vigorously
2. Don’t smoke
3. Replace saturated fats with vegetable fats
4. Eat cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, etc.
5. Consume cooked tomatoes
6. Eat fish
7. Avoid processed meats
8. Avoid whole milk.

Note that we have blogged about each item, as the links in the above list attest. It’s great to see them all assembled together, since the cumulative effect is greater than one or more separately.

One final thought: the Prostate 8 was intended for PCa patients who have already been diagnosed/treated. It bears pointing out that these habits not only help lower the chances of worse PCa once you have it, but a solid body of science points to their preventive effect against developing PCa to begin with.

We can’t manage every detail of our life. In addition to our genetic make-up that we are born with, as we go through life circumstances continually shift, bringing both pleasant and unpleasant surprises to which we must adapt. The habits we can control play a huge part in shaping—not necessarily controlling—our destiny. If your destiny matters, don’t wait. Start now, one habit at a time.

NOTE: This content is solely for purposes of information and does not substitute for diagnostic or medical advice. Talk to your doctor if you are experiencing pelvic pain, or have any other health concerns or questions of a personal medical nature.