BETA-SITOSTEROL/ANTIOXIDANT MATRIX (B-SIT/AOX) NUTRITIONAL SUPPORT
One way of phrasing the question we posed about 10-years ago was: What could happen when essential nutrition for cell membrane integrity and healthy cell reproduction was returned to the diet through supplementation? This is a quintessential naturopathic nutritional intervention. This was based on more casual observations of improvement in PCa in men following a rigorous program of lifestyle and dietary change. From another realm, it was observed that CoQ10 was proving more efficacious for PCa in subjects who were also eating beta-sitosterol (B-Sit) rich foods, however, this was based primarily on change in PSA (prostate specific antigen) and not direct examination of the prostate.7 After reviewing diets of populations with extremely low cancer, cardiovascular, and hypertension rates, a high-B-Sit based supplement was produced, with antioxidants derived from these same diets. The combination provides nutrition that is integral to cell membrane health and a healthy cell environment. Combining the B-Sit/AOX formulation with appropriate CoQ10, and a highly-rated multi-supplement with a high vitamin B Complex, became the basis for ProActive intervention. With this, watchful waiting became ProActive Monitoring.
The 3-D color power Doppler sonogram provides a means to track changes and progress in the condition of the prostate and PCa. By correlating the 3-D exam with state-of-the-art DCE-MRI grading of the cancer, Dr. Bard was able to both evaluate procedures for optimal timing of re-exam, and provide feedback for modification of an individual’s nutrition program, and in increasingly rare circumstances, recommendations for procedures such as HIFU (high-intensity focused ultrasound). Routine feedback also gave the information needed to further develop the core protocol, based primarily on changes in prostate size, tumor size, location and density, vascularity, and capsule integrity.
Prostate Nutrition
The walnut-sized prostate gland is a mucus-producing organ in males that lies just below the bladder. Growth to functional size is triggered by puberty, and continues until about age 30 when equilibrium is established between cell growth and apoptosis. Normal mid-life hormone changes, when coupled with diets that do not provide adequate nutrition for prostate cell integrity and hormone balance can trigger benign enlargement (BPH) and set the stage for other prostate conditions including prostatitis and PCa. The typical hormone pattern leading to BPH is elevated estradiol combined with elevated dihydrotestosterone (DHT), and typically estrogen dominance. This also sets up the circumstances for chronic prostatitis. While there is substantial evidence that BPH does not develop into cancer, the same underlying factors of cellular environment and integrity set the stage for PCa, and therefore, both can be considered nutritional in origin.
There are several key factors that are known to influence the development of PCa, these include:
•Inflammation: While only a relatively small percent of prostatitis – any form of inflammation of prostate tissue – is caused by bacterial infection, increasing evidence indicates a link to an imbalance in sex steroid hormones in all chronic prostatitis. An elevated level of the inflammatory cytokine interleukin (IL)-8 is a second and critical inflammation factor. IL-8 promotes stromal and epithelial cell proliferation. It is upregulated in both BPH and PCa, and it is also implicated in angiogenesis. IL-8 has been shown to have a pervasive role in promoting tumor cell survival and proliferation for all cancers. Although BPH is not a causal factor for PCa, any form of chronic inflammation of the prostate can now be considered a risk factor for PCa. (Some nutritional approaches have gone further, declaring inflammation the single “driving force” behind PCa and relying on non-nutritive supplements in an attempt to address this issue. However, this does not restore underlying nutritional imbalances which can redress the inflammation, and adds an extra, mostly unnecessary layer of complexity.)
•Prostate cell membrane elasticity: There is substantial evidence from two sides that disruption in the cell membrane’s elasticity that increases rigidity is a precursor for the development of cancer cells. It is also a factor in insulin resistance. On one side, there is evidence to suggest that rigidity leads to focal adhesions and aberrant growth [cancer] by increasing tension in the cell that is normally generated by elevated Rho factor (GTP-binding protein family).7,8 On the other, ultrasound units that can read the elasticity of cell membranes are now being shown to be accurately able to detect cancer. The primary dietary reason for alteration to a cell’s elasticity and fluidity is an imbalance between B-Sit (B-Sit) and cholesterol in the cell membrane.9,10
•Membrane permeability and intracellular environment: There are many cell functions dependent upon normal cell membrane permeability. Of interest here is an alteration in the isoprenoid pathway, the alteration of the balance of calcium and magnesium with excessive entry of Ca2+ and the release of calcium stores, a critical factor in cancer metastasis, which can be triggered when this imbalance is accompanied by critically low CoQ10 levels in the immediate intracellular fluids.
The nutritional protocol described here, addresses the above issues but also increases PCa cell apoptosis, reduces proliferation, reduces excess estrogen production, supports/restores normal cell reproduction and differentiation, and reestablishes several mechanisms of homeostasis, especially for copper homeostasis. In other words, the B-Sit/AOX Matrix provides the nutritional substructure missing from today’s food supply for the body’s normal, dynamic anticancer functions, and when balanced properly accomplishes this at physiological levels.
Diet and Prostate Cancer
A great deal of research has been published attempting to isolate dietary factors for cancer in general, and for PCa specifically. At best, this has yielded a limited picture and conflicting recommendations. When you step back and examine the diets and food supplies of regions where cancer rates are low, a different picture emerges. For example, when the PCa rates for Greece (pre-2006) are compared to United States rates, based upon autopsy examination of the prostate, you find that men between 50 and 59 years old in Greece have a rate of 5.2%, versus 30+% in the U.S. For men between 60 and 69 years old in Greece the rate is 13.8%, while the U.S. rate is 65+% – 4.7-times the Greek rate. This period was selected because at that time the Greek people still ate from a locally grown, heirloom food supply, unaltered in seed line and growing methods for hundreds of years (it has since changed to comply with European Union (EU) requirements and their health profile appears to be rapidly changing). This food supply represents a healthy variant of the Mediterranean diet.
In areas of Spain, where cancer rates are also extremely low, again the diet consists of locally grown heirloom foods. From this region we have a measure of the phytosterol content of the diet, which shows that average consumption of total phytosterols is about 400 mg per day, of which 67% is B-Sit. From here if we move to Germany, where cancer rates are approximately the same as those of the United States, again we find that the total phytosterol consumption is about 350 to 400 mg per day: however the B-Sit content is only in the 35-to-43% range.
One conclusion from this literature, especially when it is looked at in a broader context, is that it is not just the diet, but the nutritional composition of the food consumed in that diet, that makes a critical difference, and that B-Sit is essential for health in general, and our body’s anti-cancer mechanisms in particular.
Another way to look as this, is to look at the effects of high levels of dietary and circulating B-Sit. A partial list of the effects produced with high levels of B-Sit includes: normalizing cholesterol, a reduction in insulin resistance, support for normal weight control and fat metabolism, a reduction in asthma incidents, acting as an anti-inflammatory and an immune modulator, a reduction in cardiovascular disease and arteriolosclerosis, and reduced rates of lung, prostate, and other cancers.
Natural Synergism and Potentiation
One explanation for the wide ranging effects of adequate dietary B-Sit, which can be measured by blood levels, is that it acts in synergy with other substances, and also acts as a catalyst that potentiates antioxidant activity, as well as other antioxidant responses, especially for herb-based antioxidants, which in turn potentiate the efficacy of vitamin D3.11,12 It also is involved in a variety