We're Back Writing This Blog Again

After taking off more than two years to write "The Prostate Triple-Whammy: One Guy Battles Prostate Cancer, BPH and Prostatitis, And Bets On A Cure-All," I'm back writing this blog as a complement to the book. I'll use the blog to present new information, research, and personal reflections on the aftermath of aggressive radiation therapy.

The author: Back to normal after PC, kinda sorta

I wrote the book in fits and starts.  It started as a blog chronicle of my treatments. Several people, including my wife, Lorraine, encouraged me to turn those vignettes into something longer.  I kept writing about the research and issues I was uncovering. Eventually I decided to try and organize a book that used my personal experience to frame the challenges that many men diagnosed with prostate cancer face today.

Somewhere along the way I began to suspect the cancer was linked to the years of prostate and bladder issues that I had suffered through -- the symptoms of BPH, chronic and acute prostatitis, and too many urinary tract infections.  The doctors told me these diseases were not linked -- they existed independent of one another -- but alas, I stumbled on research from John Hopkins Research, a fairly credible group of research scientists, who disagreed with my doctors.



JHM gave me a toehold on the concept that the three conditions were indeed linked as diseases of inflammation. Once on that track, you can find  tons of relatively new research from teams of scientists who believe, as I now do, that prostate cancer is often the third stage of chronic prostatic inflammation, just as chronic inflammation triggers cancer in other organs, like the colon and esophagus.

Once you get to inflammation as a key risk, you can easily move to diet -- an anti-inflammatory diet, like the Mediterranean diet -- to help nurture a healthier prostate. Age and genetics also play huge roles in PC, and those are risks you can't do much about.  But what you put in your mouth is something everyone can control. There is plenty research supporting a reduction in cancer risk through diet.

Without giving away the farm, I took all this information and began to try to find other things about prostate cancer and prostate disease that your physicians may not discuss with you, either because they don't know about it or there is not "enough hard evidence" to encourage them to even bring it up with you.

Which is the big lesson for all-things-related-to-the-prostate-circa-2010:  YOU HAVE TO DO YOUR OWN HOMEWORK!

I wrote a small book, and now the blog again, to help you do the homework.  Stay tuned!

Click here for the book website: The Prostate Storm