Russian Roulette

May 4, 2013

 

If you’re not familiar with the term Russian Roulette, that is where you take an old Colt 45 revolver, place one bullet in a single chamber, spin the Chambers, hold the pistol against your head and then pull the trigger. You do not know which chamber contains the bullet so that gives you a one in six chance of committing suicide. I guess some people like to live or die dangerously.

 

russian_roulette

 

So why do I use this term for the subject of this blog. I would like to make the point that when you start conventional invasive treatments, that is like playing Russian roulette., At least in the sense that you really do not know the outcome that you are going to get.

 

 

Below, I am reporting on a new recent study/poll that confirms what I have known for a very long time, that men have very unrealistic expectations when they undertake conventional medical treatment for their prostate.

 

 

I know it, because I received thousands of e-mails from men with prostate disease every week. Inevitably, some of those e-mails make it very plain that the writer has had treatment and is both surprised and dismayed by his outcome.

 

As part of the new survey, 152 men who had part or all of their prostate removed for cancer treatment filled out a questionnaire before surgery. They first had counselling to educate them about the risks of the procedure, which include erectile dysfunction and incontinence.

 

 

The questions asked about their expectations of urinary, bowel and sexual function a year after the surgery. About half of men expected that they would have the same function after surgery as before, and 17 percent of men anticipated better sexual function after the surgery.

One year later, the researchers followed up with the patients and found that just 36 percent of men’s expectations for urinary function matched the true outcomes, and only 40 percent of the expectations for sexual function matched reality.

 

 

Daniela Wittmann, the sexual health coordinator in the urology department at the University of Michigan and a researcher on the study, said doctors are unable to predict how well an individual patient is likely to recover their urinary and sexual functions.

 

 

One recent study showed that, one year after surgery, only one out of four men recovered his ability to have intercourse.

 

 

The inability to get an erection is one of the more common side effects from prostate cancer surgery. Some men can have a “nerve sparing” procedure, which is supposed to leave the nerves that control erections intact. But thatoften does not work.

 

The bottom line is that the majority of men who undergo surgery to treat prostate cancer find themselves with greater incontinence problems and less sexual function than they had anticipated, according to this poll.

 

Dr. Tracey Krupski, an assistant professor of urology at the University of Virginia, and who was not involved in this study, said “Any intervention that you do to a patient, whether it be surgical or radiation, is never going to make the person (function) better than they are at the present time”

 

 

How about that for an understatement?

 

 

According to the American Cancer Society, one out of every six men in the United States will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point. Every year, tens of thousands of men select surgery for their treatment.

 

So, is there an alternative to conventional invasive surgical treatments? Yes, there is. One alternative is to use a more natural, holistic and gentle approach. Since all the studies point to the fact that your life expectancy remains the same whether or not you have invasive treatments, there is no downside to a natural approach. It cannot do worse. But it may do better. And the best news is that you have close to zero chance of having any of the downsides associated with invasive treatments.

 

If you are considering a biopsy or any treatment, let me tell you about a far better alternative to a prostate biopsy or conventional treatment. There is a professor of Urology (who is also a naturopathic physician) who has a unique technology and expertise. His technology is non-invasive and therefore far safer than a biopsy. Moreover, it is more accurate and less expensive than biopsy. We have created an all-inclusive APCRA .  He provides the diagnostics & monitoring for that disease management program and I provide the mentoring for supplements, nutrition and lifestyle changes based upon his diagnosis. If that is of interest to you, email me @ ben.ong@yoag.com  and I will send you further information.

 

I wish you good health,

 

 

Ben Ong

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How Doctors Kill

April 19, 2013

 

One of my readers sent me a report by Gary Null PhD, Carolyn Dean MD ND, Martin Feldman MD, Debora Rasio MD, Dorothy Smith PhD.

 

 

It made very interesting reading and I’m going to provide you with a synopsis in this newsletter, in some cases I will produce extracts verbatim. In all cases, I shall avoid citing bibliography because this is a newsletter rather than a study.

 

 

Most men who contact me are already having some conventional medical treatment for their prostate or are considering having it. I usually provide very specific information about the success or failings of drugs prescribed for the prostate or treatments offered for the prostate.
 

 

This report goes much wider than that, and it highlights the immense failings of the conventional medical industry. Any other industry that had this degree of failure would simply not get away with it. They would be bankrupt. In the case of the medical industry, they make money hand over fist, despite their failures.

 

 

 

The content of this report is especially important for those men who believe that their doctor always knows best. You really need to be a bit cautious before you accept the advice of your Dr.

 

 

 

Iatrogenic deaths refer to those deaths that are caused by prescription drugs or medical treatments. A very high proportion of both drugs and treatments are actually unnecessary.

 

 

 

What is remarkable about this report is that never before have the complete statistics on the multiple causes of iatrogenesis been combined in one paper. Medical science amasses tens of thousands of papers annually– each one a tiny fragment of the whole picture.

 

 

 

To look at only one piece and try to understand the benefits and risks is to stand one inch away from an elephant and describe everything about it. You have to pull back to reveal the complete picture, such as has been done in this report.

 

 

 

Each specialty, each division of medicine, keeps their own records and data on morbidity and mortality like pieces of a puzzle. But the numbers and statistics were always hiding in plain sight. This report has now completed the painstaking work of reviewing thousands and thousands of studies. Finally, putting the puzzle together. The report came up with some disturbing answers.

 

 

 

At 14 percent of the Gross National Product, health care has spent $1.6 trillion in 2003. How much more do you think they have spent year after year? Considering this enormous expenditure, we should have the best medicine in the world. We should be reversing disease, preventing disease, and doing minimal harm.

 

However, careful and objective review shows the opposite. Because of the extraordinary narrow context of medical technology through which contemporary medicine examines the human condition, we are completely missing the full picture.

 

 

Conventional Medicine is not taking into consideration the following monumentally important aspects of a healthy human organism: (a) stress and how it adversely affects the immune system and life processes; (b) insufficient exercise; (c) excessive caloric intake; (d) highly-processed and denatured foods grown in denatured and chemically damaged soil; and (e) exposure to tens of thousands of environmental toxins.

 

 

 

Instead of minimizing these disease-causing factors, we actually cause more illness through medical technology, diagnostic testing, overuse of medical and surgical procedures, and overuse of pharmaceutical drugs. The huge disservice of this therapeutic strategy is the result of little effort or money being appropriated for preventing disease.

 

 

stethoscope

 

 

A definitive review and close reading of medical peer-review journals, and government health statistics shows that American medicine frequently causes more harm than good. The number of people having in-hospital, adverse drug reactions (ADR) to prescribed medicine is 2.2 million. Dr. Richard Besser, of the CDC, in 1995, said the number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections was 20 million. Dr. Besser, in 2003, now refers to tens of millions of unnecessary antibiotics.

 

The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million. The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually is 8.9 million.
 
The total number of iatrogenic deaths shown in the following table is 783,936. It is evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the United States. The 2001 heart disease annual death rate is 699,697; the annual cancer death rate, 553,251.

 

Any medical procedure that is invasive and not necessary must be considered as part of the larger iatrogenic picture. Unfortunately, cause and effect go unmonitored, because it is not in the interests of conventional medicine to monitor those figures. The figures on unnecessary events represent people (?patients?) who are thrust into a dangerous healthcare system. They are helpless victims. Each one of these 16.4 million lives is being affected in a way that could have a fatal consequence. The phrase  nosocomial  refers to those infections that are specifically caused by entry into hospital. Simply entering a hospital could result in the following:

1.    In 16.4 million people, 2.1% chance of a serious adverse drug reaction,1 (186,000)

 

2.    In 16.4 million people, 5-6% chance of acquiring a nosocomial infection,9 (489,500)

 
3.    In 16.4 million people, 4-36% chance of having an iatrogenic injury in hospital (medical error and adverse drug reactions),16 (1.78 million)
 
4.    In 16.4 million people, 17% chance of a procedure error,40(1.3 million)

 
All the statistics above represent a one-year time span. Imagine the numbers over a ten-year period. Working with the most conservative figures from our statistics we project the following 10-year death rates.

 

 

 

The projected statistic of 7.8 million iatrogenic deaths in this report is more than all the casualties from wars that America has fought in its entire history. The projected figures for unnecessary medical events occurring over a 10- year period are also dramatic.

 

 

 

These projected figures show that a total of 164 million people, approximately 56% of the population of the United States, have been treated unnecessarily by the medical industry I in other words, nearly 50,000 people per day.

 

 
What does all this amount to? What is telling me is that this is confirmation in spades of my belief the man is better off avoiding conventional medicine altogether when it comes to prostate disease. My constant theme is that any man with any prostate disease is better to avoid his Dr and urologist and to concentrate on the natural, holistic and safe ways to heal oneself of disease. Such methods certainly do not guarantee success, but then neither does conventional medicine and it does harm, whereas natural does not.

 

 

If you are not already taking some of my natural supplements, may I suggest that you should try my “total health for the prostate“. It is extraordinarily successful for most. If you buy three bottles of my total health, you will also receive a complimentary copy of my guide which normally costs $79.

 

 

 

I wish you good health,

 

 

Ben Ong

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Treatments Can Be Worse Than the Disease

April 11, 2013

 

A nationally recognized prostate cancer specialist with more than 30 years treatment expertise advocates in a press release that men and their partners “do their homework” prior to selecting treatment for prostate cancer that could cause severe, lifelong quality of life issues.
 

 

One in six men in the U.S. will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetimes.

treatment

 

South Florida urologist Dr. Bert Vorstman takes a critical view on manufacturers, hospital systems and some colleagues who minimize the after effects of radical surgeries while continuing to endorse the procedures as a viable option.
 

 

“I believe that the radical surgical/robotic treatment option has single-handedly increased the incidence of impotence and incontinence worldwide, and physicians would do well to consider the Hippocrates affirmation: As to diseases, make a habit of two things–to help, or at least, to do no harm,” challenged Vorstman in his article. “Men who choose these treatments without reviewing alternative, less invasive options are playing Russian Roulette with the quality of life prospects following the surgery.”

 

 

For some, these issues are worse than the disease itself,” said Vorstman.
 

 

“I want patients to realize that prostate cancer is not an emergency diagnosis,” stated Dr. Vorstman.

 

 

 

“When we hear the word cancer, we assume fast, aggressive treatment is required. Most prostate cancers are slow growing, which means patients and their partners have time to do their research and make a fully informed decision about treatment. As long as the cancer is not growing aggressively, patients can wait before seeking treatment.”
 

 

In his article Dr. Vorstman states “Seeing a man despondent and wearing diapers because he is no longer able to control his urine flow after his radical surgery/robotics treatment of his prostate cancer is a very, very sad sight. Sadder still is seeing his wife trying to support and console her man. Both are in despair, confused and wondering how this predicament came to be, was this necessary and where do they go forward with their lives from here? For him, trying to share his feelings with his surgeon and his prostate cancer support group is an empty and fruitless task. Hardly is it surprising then to hear some of these men afflicted with these horrible complications tell me that “their” choice to have their prostate cancer removed through radical surgery/robotics was, “the worst decision of my life”
 

I could not argue with what he says but before you rush off to see Dr. Vorstman, let me warn you. He has an agenda. His article is designed to generate interest and to present himself as caring and alternative. He may be caring but he isn’t alternative. He recommends biopsy. I have been told by many men that he invariably promotes his HIFU technology and his attack on robotic surgery is designed to convince you that HIFU is less invasive. In my book, HIFU is also invasive.
 

 

I prefer my Professor in my Arizona clinic. If you are concerned that you may have prostate cancer, let me tell you about a far better alternative to a prostate biopsy. There is a professor of Urology (who is also a naturopathic physician) that has a unique technology and expertise. His technology is non-invasive and therefore far safer than Biopsy. Moreover, it is more accurate and less expensive than biopsy. We have created an all-inclusive APCRA. This is genuinely non invasive. Phranq Tamburri does not have an agenda to sell you any treatment.

 

If you wish to supplement Testosterone, this APCRA program would also enable you to continue with testosterone supplementation safely since it will monitor whether you do have a tumor or not and the growth of it. In other words, you will not be supplementing testosterone blindly.

 

He provides the diagnostics for that disease management program and I provide the mentoring for supplements, nutrition and lifestyle changes based upon his diagnosis.
 

 

I wish you good health,

 

 

Ben Ong

 

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Prostate Reality Check

March 9, 2013

 

prostate cancerStatistics show that men have a 1 in 3 chance of developing a prostate disease at some time in their lives… For an unlucky 1 in 13, that disease will be cancer…

 

 

Prostate cancer is one of the biggest killers of men. If you or your loved one is in this age group you must act NOW.

 

*Each year 40,000 men undergo painful surgery. This leaves many incontinent, impotent and infertile! Going under the knife is not a solution…

 

* Approximately 50% of patients who suffer an operation removing the whole of their prostate will be left impotent as well as 10% who only have part of their prostate removed

 

* About 5% of patients who undergo an operation for prostate cancer will be left incontinent

 

* 1% to 2% of patients suffering from prostate cancer will die after the removal of their prostate

 

* And 20% of patients who undergo a partial prostectomy will be forced to go under the knife a second time

 

Let us put some of these statistics into a context.

 

I constantly point out that invasive surgery for prostate cancer does not improve the chances of survival, even by one day. That is absolutely confirmed by 20 years of studies now. But such invasive procedures also certainly do not improve the quality of life for those who undergo them.

 

Almost every month there are new claims for ever more high tech methods of partially reducing or totally destroying the prostate gland. Again, these over hyped claims are always driven by PR, marketing and making money and are rarely substantiated by experience.

 

 

My position has always been that it really does not make that much of a difference (other than what you have to pay to get the latest medical fad) whether you cut, irradiate, burn, freeze, or otherwise destroy cancerous organs. They are all invasive and damaging.

 

This is also true for the practice of TURPS and other treatments such as Green laser, freezing or microwaving. Although the idea here is to only partially reduce the prostate, the side-effects are often just as bad as with a full prostatectomy.

 

So it is always interesting when new research finally emerges that squash the pretensions of those who are promoting a new technology.

 

A fairly recent study suggests less-invasive keyhole surgery for prostate cancer may mean a higher risk for lasting incontinence and impotence when compared with traditional surgery.

 

The results add to confusion around prostate cancer treatments, which quote frequently lead to urinary and sexual problems.

 

Laparoscopic, or keyhole, surgery is increasingly chosen by men having a cancerous prostate removed. And often it involves the highly marketed da Vinci robotics system. Da Vinci’s popularity has been rising even though there’s never been a rigorous head-to-head comparison between it and standard surgery.

 

“There’s been a rapid adoption of this relatively new technique,” said the study’s lead author Dr. Jim Hu of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

 

 

For the study, appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers’ analyzed Medicare data for nearly 9,000 prostate cancer patients who had
surgical treatment from 2003-07. Of those, 1,938 patients had (what is promoted as minimally invasive surgery) and 6,899 patients had standard surgery.

 

The patients who had keyhole surgery left the hospital in two days, rather than three, on average. They also had lower rates of blood transfusions, breathing problems and internal scarring.

 

But the men who had keyhole surgery were more likely to report complications in the first 30 days after surgery involving genital and urinary function. About five per cent of the minimally invasive surgery patients vs. about two per cent of the standard surgery patients had these complications. And after 18 months, they had more incontinence and erectile dysfunction.

 

The take-home message for men is they need to be more skeptical of the planted stories from device manufacturers or other promotions.

 

Follow the money. From 2001-06, use of the da Vinci system — the only robot available for this operation — rose from one per cent to 40 per cent of all radical prostatectomies. During that time, the stock price of da Vinci’s maker, Sunnyvale, California-based Intuitive Surgical Inc., increased 11-fold.

 

To compete for patients, more hospitals are buying robotic systems and advertising faster recovery times. More doctors are taking the two-day training to learn Intuitive’s da Vinci Surgical System.

 

Dr. Steve Freedland of Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, said he doubts the findings will dampen the enthusiasm for robotic surgery — he termed it “mass hysteria over new technology” — because surgeons will claim better-than-average results when they talk to men considering their options.

 

“One of the reasons why health care in this country is extremely expensive is because it’s assumed that what’s newest must be best,” Freedland said.

 

The researchers found that the less-invasive surgery was more popular among more affluent, highly educated men. So it might be that those patients are more likely to seek help for urinary and sexual problems compared to men who had traditional surgery, said Dr. Ashutosh Tewari, director of the Prostate Cancer Institute at NewYork Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

 

I wish you good health,

 

Ben Ong

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He Wants to Share his Experience

February 14, 2013

Dear Mr OngAs you may well imagine, I often get heartrending e-mails from men that made me very sad. Below is an example of one where he specifically asked me to share his experience with other men.
Unfortunately, the e-mail address he gave me was incorrect and I have been unable to reply directly to him.
If you are in a situation where you are receiving advice from your Dr that you feel uncomfortable about, please feel free to e-mail me so that I may give you information which may be helpful for you, while you still have the chance to avoid making a mistake that you will regret.
On Mon, Jan. 27, 2012 at 2:18 PM, wrote:

 

 

Question from Cabral
I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in July of 2009 and had a radical prostatectomy in September of 2009. Although, it was my decision to have the surgery, the doctors made it seem like it was my only option that would allow me to live longer. They talked the doctor talk and showed the concern that all doctors do, but oddly now, I don’t know if they were straight with me. As I reflect back to that moment. It made me think the surgery was about making money. Let me explain. The doctors were so nice in the beginning. After I had my surgery, it was as if they really didn’t want anything to do with me. Yes, my doc-set dates to check my psa levels after surgery, but when I went to visit, he really didn’t seem to care about answering my questions. The visits were so short and I spent more time talking to his nurse. It made me feel like I made the wrong choice in relationship to my situation (having surgery). It also made me feel like I chose the wrong doctors. If I could do it all over again, I would have switched doctors and evaluated the situation more carefully and then arrived at a decision. I’m very good at feeling people out and knowing if they care. On each visit to my surgeon who performed my surgery, I take blood, see the nurse, and then see him for about two to three minutes and the visit is over. It was frustrating to me that I had chosen this doctor who had removed my prostate (which change my life–sexually–cannot have children or ejaculate semen). I would think that the doctor would be more willing to speak with me. One thing is for sure, they made a lot of money from the surgery. Anyway, I intend to order your book very soon. I wish I would have read your book before I made a decision to have surgery. I learned more from the information I read on your report on prostatectomy that I learned from my doctors. Please feel free to print this information so that other men can read it for themselves. If you need to speak with my individually, e-mail me, leave a number.

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Heat and Ice Cubes

February 7, 2013

One of the things that seem to be most confusing to my reader is understands the difference between conventional medical treatment that includes prescription drugs and invasive treatments, and natural holistic healing.
It seems hard for people to grasp the difference between dealing with symptoms and dealing with the underlying cause. I have an analogy which I hope will be helpful to those who remain uncertain of the difference.
Imagine you have a pot full of boiling water on top of a stove. The water is boiling because it is being heated by the stove. Think of the stove as disease and the boiling water as the symptoms of that disease.
So what does conventional medicine do, they add ice cubes to the boiling water. As a result, the water cools down. But as the heat is still being applied, the water will boil once again, unless additional ice cubes are constantly inserted. In other words, the symptoms are being controlled, but only as long as toxic drugs are continued.
So what does holistic and natural healing seek to do? To continue the analogy, instead of adding ice cubes to the boiling water, holistic healing seeks to reduce and eventually eliminate the heat being applied to the water.
The object of holistic healing is to heal the whole body in order to enable it to heal itself of the disease. In other words, it tries to eliminate the disease, as a result of which the symptoms will eventually subside.
For the latter part of this blog. I’m going to reproduce an e-mail received by me from one of my customers and my reply. I think you may find both illuminating and interesting.
Ben,

 

I’m relatively new to your health program and have been taking your total health tablets for the last 3 months. I have been diagnosed with a fatty lever disease by my doctor. He advised me to lose weight and stop any alcohol intake. I had already started on your total health tablets at that time of his diagnose but when I mentioned the supplements I was taking he downplayed their role  as a waste of money. Fortunately I read your book all about the prostate prior to that visit and I have stopped getting up 2 to 3 times a night to urinate as a result.

 

My question is do you have any suggestions for treating the fatty liver that might help?

 

Hi Bert,

I’m glad to hear that total health has helped you and your own experience was a good guide to enable you to make a judgment about what your Dr was telling you. May I use your comments in my promotions? Obviously I will not divulge your contact information.
Yes I can help you with fatty liver. This is something that most doctors will tell you cannot be reversed. But of course it can be. It does take a serious and disciplined effort to make changes to your diet and it is not easy but it is important because when you have a fatty liver there are all kinds of consequences.
A fatty liver leads to metabolic syndrome which makes it very difficult to lose weight. It also mostly leads to pre-diabetes and eventually diabetes type 2 with all the complications of that. On average diabetes will shorten your life by 20 years at least.

 

There are some supplements to make the process easier. The first thing is you need to take my B complex mega plus if because apart from the B vitamins which are helpful it contains something called TMG.
It takes about a year of TMG to reduce the existence of fat on the liver. But that also presupposes that you make the effort to change your diet and take additional supplements to reverse the effects of metabolic syndrome.
The supplements are the easy part providing you can afford them. The harder part will be to make the radical changes to your diet which is to make your diet largely raw vegan.
I can help you make the transition to such a radically different diet because I am organizing an anti-ageing diet to help men who wish to make that transition. Do you have enough control over your own lifestyle and either time or assistance to prepare food to enable you to make that change if you wish to do so?
I should add that although you will be doing all this in order to combat the effects of your fatty liver and prevent yourself from getting diabetes, it will also have some amazing positive effect on your entire health profile. If you can do it, you will feel a new man and look 20 years younger. Although you will see very positive results within a few months, this is a process that will take years to complete.
You need to take two capsules a day of the B complex mega plus. And that means a bottle will last you three months. There are four additional supplements which combine to help you reverse the metabolic syndrome. You can read about them at this link and if you wish you can buy them online.

If you make the decision to follow my advice then I will find a way to give you a preview of my video course to help you make that transition to a largely raw vegan diet. Please let me know if you decide that is what you want to do and I will support to my ability.
I wish you good health,
Ben Ong

PS
If you have any health issues, not just prostate, I would like to help you if I can. I cannot help with all issues but I certainly have a lot of experience of all metabolic diseases. So feel free
to reply to this blog and I will help you if I can.

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Prostatectomy Sucks!

February 5, 2013

No

I do get a lot of e-mails everyday and I try to answer every one as possible as I can. As always, most of what I get is pretty positive. But sometimes I get very critical replies. And they are also sometimes worthwhile for me to share with you and also show you the answer that I have responded with.

 

Ben, I think it’s irresponsible to say men should not get a biopsy.  I had an elevated PSA, got a biopsy (which caused no problems)..  Cancer was discovered and due to it being aggressive it was recommended I get a prostatectomy.  I had robotic surgery, and have now fully recovered. On the other hand, a friend had prostate cancer, but didn’t know about it until it spread to his bones.  He died this morning…-Sincerely, Ren

 

Hi Ren,

 

It is sad but true that some men die of prostate cancer. Had your friend read my book at some earlier time and followed the advice in it, he may not have died so early.

 

As for yourself, I am not sure what you mean when you say you are now fully recovered. There is no such thing. You remain at risk of a recurrence of prostate cancer. There is not a single day in which I do not get at least one e-mail and usually more, from men who have had prostatectomy and are having a recurrence of prostate cancer. It is possible to die of prostate cancer even if you  no longer have a prostate. I would strongly advise you to read my book and take my total health supplement in order to minimize that risk.

 

Let me try to explain why the science indicates that there is no point in having a prostatectomy. All the studies over the last 20 years has shown beyond doubt that your life expectancy is exactly the same whether you have your prostate removed, or have any of the other conventional treatments, or any combination of those or do absolutely nothing at all. There is little doubt that there are implications for your health and well-being if you have your prostate removed. In fact, in my next newsletter I will be quoting that indicates that only one out of forty- eight prostatectomies does any good at all. That is not
exactly very good odds.

 

You already made the decision to have a prostatectomy so it may not be easy for you to accept that you may have made the wrong decision. But it is important for you to make the best of where you are now and move forward to try to minimize the risk of a further recurrence. Please take a look at my video about prostatectomy and consider getting my book and following the recommendations in it.

 

A book “Invasion of the Prostate Snatchers,” was released this by two authors. One man has lived with prostate cancer for 20 years and another is an oncologist who has treated the disease exclusively since 1995. They state that only 1 in 7 men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer are at risk for a serious form of the disease. More than 40,000 of the 50,000 radical prostatectomy performed every year are not necessary, they conclude. A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine stated that radical prostatectomy extended the lives of just 1 patient in 48. I don’t see that as being particularly good odds.

 

Let me also add that if you take into account death from other causes then Prostatectomy helps not even that 1 in 48. In other words having a prostatectomy increases your chances of dying from other causes such as heart failure.
This benefit has to be weighed against the well-documented side effects of surgery, such as impotence and incontinence, and the lack of a demonstrated difference in overall survival. Erectile dysfunction and urinary leakage are important sources of decreased well-being after radical prostatectomy.

 

The report A Randomized Trial Comparing Radical Prostatectomy with Watchful Waiting in Early Prostate Cancer was published in: N Engl J Med 2002; 347:781-789September 12, 2002

 

From my reading of the study, the single most significant finding was one which confirms many subsequent studies that I have quoted before.

 

“There was no significant difference between surgery and watchful waiting in terms of overall survival.”

 

This is also true for all the conventional treatments, not just prostatectomy.

 

Here is an excerpt from the latest study by Researchers at the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, which is based at the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Institute for Technology Assessment published by the National cancer institute their website January 12th.

 

They concluded that the various approaches—including active surveillance, surgery, and radiation therapy—result in similar overall survival and tumor recurrence rates. However, compared with the immediate treatment options, active surveillance yields both a comparable net health benefit and more quality-adjusted life years for men age 65 and older, according to the economic model used in this study.

 

Since watchful waiting, is a euphemism for doing nothing at all, what we are being told is that doing nothing at all produces results just as good as any combination of conventional treatments.

 

What none of these studies include is that a change in diet, lifestyle and appropriate supplements, can make a significant difference to the outcome of prostate cancer, or indeed wishing to pre-empt the possibility of prostate cancer. I do detail such studies in my book “All About The Prostate”.

 

I wish you good health,

 

Ben Ong

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Surgery or No Surgery

January 29, 2013

A couple of days ago, I received an extremely long e-mail from a customer who has prostate cancer and is very conflicted about whether or not he’s doing the right thing.
That is a situation which is very difficult for every man and all I can do is provide them with information on my own personal view of what I would do in their shoes. It is too much of the responsibility and I do not believe even a medical Dr can or should make that decision for any man.
Anyway, I felt that this was such an interesting cry for help that I would share it with you. I have many readers of my newsletter that have prostate cancer, and of course it is a statistical fact that many who do not yet have it, we’ll get it.

So I imagine it may be of interest to you.
I apologize for the extreme length of this e-mail to you, but I felt it was probably right to reproduce exactly what he said as he said it. My comments are shown in bold.

 

This is a very long e-mail and I will try to deal with each paragraph in turn, see below.

 

On Tue, Jan 17, 2013 at 4:22 AM, RANDALL wrote:

 

 

Hi Again   I have another “challenge” for you and I will respect your wishes to opt out if that is your desire.  I realize you have spent considerable time researching this prostrate issue.   By the tone of your messages I would also suggest that you have a problem with the medical profession, big pharma and the food industry.  All of which might be well deserved. First of all I will give you my opinion – I have a problem with the supplement industry and the the lot of the health gurus that use handpicked “stories” or testimonials from their customers to support their views or promote their product.  This is fueled by a recent purchase from a Dr. Whitaker here in Southern California.  He sells supplements and has a “health spa” in Orange County.  He has written books etc.   I just purchased a sleeping aid from him – by the advertisement I was led to believe that taking this supplement I would have no problems sleeping – not the case.  I’m disappointed.  Where was the research – was this product just thrown out in the market because other “researchers” found some testimonials from their client base.

 

The medical profession is not the only scamsters around. Wherever there is money, there are scams. The difference is that the medical profession has turned scams into an art form. I believe the pharmaceutical industry alone earns more profits than all other industries combined.

 

Doctors command humongous amounts of money for their services, especially specialists. The infrastructure, the money, and the political influence are like a steamroller that squashes everything in its path. And has this enormous engine for wealth actually improved the health of Americans? No, not at all. Most Americans are sicker and die earlier than in poorer countries.

 

Having put that into context, people like Dr Whittaker and a few others make a great deal of money (nothing in comparison to the medical profession) by telling people what they want to hear and hyping up supplements that really do not work.

 

I must also say that no supplement works for every man. When I advise men on the diet they should eat and the exercise they should do and the supplements they should take, all of that works for the majority and that means it’s very effective, but there are a sizable minority for whom it doesn’t work for one reason or another.

 

I like to think that the majority of the minority are men who do not follow through on my advice and compromise. But I have no scientific evidence or statistical foundation to prove that.

 

There is only one solution to this problem and that is to find someone you feel you can trust and ignore all the siren calls from people offering alternative solutions. Anything else only leads to confusion. Decisions made by consensus do not generally make for very good decisions.

 

This message is inspired by a meeting I had with another Urologist.  I build medical offices and have a lot of contact with docs of all disciplines – some of which I am friendly with and are willing to consult with me without charges or expectations of services.  I have confided in a few of them with my problem. The above mentioned Urologist got me thinking after showing me some research and reports (by the way this guy has authored books, articles is 76 yrs old , does not want me as a patient, no longer performs surgery etc  – no dog in the fight) At any rate he strongly recommended I have surgery.


Of course, he has spent his whole lifetime recommending surgery. Would he really want to change his mind about that? Would he really like to believe that a whole lifetime of recommendations were wrong?

OK   that will set you off as it did me. I don’t want surgery I would much rather change my diet, take supplements etc.    You can probably see the question that is screaming out for an answer above. Your claim is that it makes no difference whether you have intervening procedures or not, the outcome is the same.  One of two conclusions can be drawn from your assertion: If you have prostate cancer, surgery, radiation is totally ineffective. And you will die of it or die with it anyway. (Whether you die prematurely and as a result is a question)   The second conclusion is taking supplements and altering your diet will stop, cure or prevent prostate cancer from killing you and possibly reverse it.
Another less likely explanation is that there is much ado about nothing – this disease is present but the medical and pharmaceutical  profession is fabricating a  crisis to make a buck

 

You actually answer your own question in the paragraph, because quite clearly some men do die of prostate cancer. So it is not much ado about nothing but it may be more ado about something.

 

My central thesis goes like this. We’re pretty sure that none of the conventional medical treatments for prostate cancer lengthen your life expectancy at all. We’re also pretty sure that all the conventional medical treatments for prostate cancer are damaging to the quality of your life. Therefore, we have a downside for no benefit. So scratch conventional medical treatment.

 

What you left with? If you do nothing then you may be one of the unfortunate men that will die of your prostate cancer and as you said it can be very painful and agonizing. I cannot guarantee that changing your diet, living a healthier lifestyle and taking by supplements will help you live longer. But I can guarantee that while you’re alive the quality of your life will be better for having done that.

 

There is sufficient evidence in the China study and indeed Ornish’s study to suggest that it may also extend your life expectancy.

 

So what do we have? One certain benefit in terms of the quality of your life and one possible benefit in terms of the length of your life. Since we are all going to die anyway, it seems to me that my strategy makes the most sense.

 

I have already told you what I think about making decisions by consensus. But this is a decision that is only for you. If I can help you further, please call on me.

 

If you decide to accept my reasoning, then one thing you should definitely do is join my membership site and anti-ageing diet, because your best bet to live longest and best is to go for a raw vegan diet and it is not easy to know what foods to eat, where to buy them, how to prepare them.

 

Thanks you are providing a great service!
Randy

 

You are so welcome; it is one of the things that give my life purpose to help other men.

 

I wish you good health,

 

Ben Ong

 

Posted in Invasive Treatments, Prostate Cancer, Prostate Diseases | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Impotence and Broken Bones

January 28, 2013

I am for ever telling men about the downsides of various prescription drugs and invasive treatments for prostate disease. It is really astonishing to me that billions of dollars are spent each year by men who do not realize that those drugs and invasive treatments do not work and that those drugs and treatments will do them harm.
Of course changing your diet and lifestyle is not the easiest thing to do but it does remain the only real way in conjunction with supplements, to heal your disease. I have a website which provides a great deal of information about the prostate and the various drugs and treatments that are available, and the side-effects and consequences of using them.
You can read more and see videos about the prostate, about prescription drugs used for the prostate, the invasive treatments and the side-effects if you visit my website.

 

 

There is a constant stream of new research that always confirms the dangers of both drugs and invasive treatments. It is part of my brief to keep you up-to-date with those studies and today I’m going to tell you about two recent studies.

 

One comes from Australia which confirms that virtually all men who have invasive treatments for prostate cancer end up being impotent. Of course to some men that does not matter so much but to many it does matter. Anddoctors do not necessarily tell them the truth before that treatment.
As I have always said, becoming impotent and incontinent might be considered a price worth paying if in fact the treatment does cure you of prostate cancer, but it does not. So you pay the price but you do not get the goods.
The major Australian study, led by Cancer Council NSW epidemiologist David Smith, found sexual performance problems were almost guaranteed to follow most front-line treatments for prostate cancer.
Contrary to the views of many doctors, the problem could be long-term and it was seen to get worse over time.
Impotence is a common side-effect of prostate cancer treatment, along with incontinence,” Dr Smith said in a statement on Wednesday.
“There is a widespread perception that symptoms ease with time, but there has been little in the way of research to confirm whether this is the case.
“Our study shows that for conventional prostate cancer treatments – with the exception of low-dose brachytherapy – patients experience high levels of impotence which is still evident after five years.”
One treatment, known as androgen deprivation therapy, saw 94 per cent of patients who received it report they were impotent two years later, and this increased to 97 per cent after five years.
Radical prostatectomy, or external beam therapy, or a combination of these two treatments, led to impotency problems for 70 to 80 per cent of patients over the years.
Nerve sparing surgery improved outcomes slightly, but even low-dose-rate brachytherapy had significant levels of impotence, and that was the only treatment that did not cause impotency in the majority of patients.  Low-dose-rate brachytherapy caused impotency in 38 per cent of men after two years rising to 43 per cent after five years.
The five-year study assessed impotency rates across more than 1600 prostate cancer patients and 500 healthy control subjects.
“Clinicians tend to underestimate side-effects following prostate cancer treatment and invariably are surprised when they learn of the extent and duration of impotence following treatment,” Dr Smith said.
The research was presented on Wednesday at the Clinical Oncological Society of Australia’s (COSA) Annual Scientific Meeting, being held this week in Melbourne.
Here is the second study. Long-term use of androgen deprivation therapy to treat prostate cancer does not only cause impotence and increase the risk of heart failure (as found in previous studies) but may also increase older patients’ risk of broken bones, according to a new study presented at the annual AACR Cancer Prevention Research Conference.

 

 

The study analyzed data from more than 46,500 men, aged 66 and older, who survived at least five years after a diagnosis of localized prostate cancer and received long-term androgen deprivation therapy.
The study found that men treated with androgen deprivation therapy had a 20 percent increased risk of a first fracture and a 57 percent increased risk of a second fracture after two years of treatment.
“Treating men who have pre-existing conditions with longer duration of androgen deprivation therapy exacerbates their risk of fracture, and becomes more pronounced over time,” Grace Lu-Yao, a professor of medicine at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey and UMDNJ Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, said in an American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) news release. “Fracture has a strong impact on quality of life and mortality,” she added.
In addition, treatments involving removal of the testicles to stop testosterone production (which prostate cancer needs in order to grow) and/or long-term gonadotropin-releasing hormone use are also associated with an increased risk of fracture among men with prostate cancer.
Please keep in mind that not only do men suffer these downsides but also these drugs and treatments do not improve the health of their prostate. The evidence is that these treatments do not improve their life expectancy by even one day.
Here is an excerpt from the latest study by Researchers at the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, which is based at the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Institute for Technology Assessment published by the National cancer institute on their website January 12th.
They concluded that the various approaches including active surveillance, surgery, and radiation therapy—result in similar overall survival and tumor recurrence rates. However, compared with the immediate treatment options, active surveillance yields both a comparable net health benefit and more quality-adjusted life years for men age 65 and older, according to the economic model used in this study.
Active surveillance is a euphemism for doing nothing, so what this study is saying is that doing nothing produces a better result than any conventional medical treatment for prostate cancer.

 

 

If you wish to know more about the progress of your cancer and what better way to deal with it, I do have a program called APCRA or Advanced Prostate Cancer Risk Assessment. To know more, you can click here.

 

 

I wish you good health,

Ben Ong

 

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Which Surgery is Better if Any?

December 20, 2012

I am always saying to men who are considering prostate treatments that the more high tech or the more novel or more expensive treatments are, the more these are not necessarily or are any better just because they are newer or more expensive.

 
As you probably know my bottom line is that I don’t think any of the conventional medical treatments are really worth considering. My reason for that is simply that all the studies that have been produced in the last 20 years, show that there is little or no difference in how long you will survive to live with prostate cancer or how long it will take for you to die of it, whether you have conventional treatments or do not have any conventional treatments at all. But there is a massive difference in what conventional treatments will do to the quality of your life.

 
Whenever a new technology is employed, extravagant claims are made about how much less invasive it is and the fewer side effects it will generate. You should always be wary of the glossy promises made by doctors, urologists, and hospitals about the use of the new technologies. They are trying to sell you something.

 

 

The bottom line is always the fact that whatever technology is used it destroys tissue. And it doesn’t matter how you do it, it is still invasive and always damaging to your health.

 

 

The claims and promises are made during that window of opportunity before the long-term data has been accumulated, and the independent studies gain access to that data. Once the studies come in (which can take from 5 to 15 years) it is almost invariably the case that the new technology is no better and sometimes is actually worse in its outcomes than the old technology.

 

 

And here is a case in point. In a new study, researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City compared ORP (open surgery) and LRP (laparoscopic surgery which can be robotic assisted) outcomes in nearly 6,000 men, age 66 or older, with localized prostate cancer.

 

 

After they adjusted for patient and tumor characteristics, the researchers found no differences in the rates of general medical/surgical complications, genital/urinary/bowel complications, or in use of postoperative radiation and/or androgen deprivation. In other words neither technology produced a better end result than the other. The bottom line is that the results are similar for men with prostate cancer whether they have open surgery or laparoscopic surgery, this new study has found.

 

 

Patients in the LRP group had a 35 percent shorter hospital stay and a lower rate of bladder neck/urethral obstruction, the study authors noted.

 

 

Currently, open radical prostatectomy (ORP) is considered the standard treatment but the use of laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP), with or without robotic assistance, is becoming more widespread.

 

 

I wish you good health and all the best with your decision,

 

 

Ben Ong

 

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