While we're on the subject of supplements let's ask—let's lob you—this is a question
I get all the time, and that is two things about diet. The first one is,
is there a strong link between eating dairy products and prostate cancer?
I well, first of all, I don't know if you could hear the barking in the back. My dog is trying
to get in so I was looking at you in the eyes but I was turning away to send a note to my wife. I
wrote please help Chauncey, so hopefully, she's good she's gonna figure out in the
next few minutes that he's trying to get in here because I think he wants — I think he likes you.
Mark, we have nothing against dogs! You could allow the dog in.
I know, but the dog will take over and you know we're egomaniacs;
we don't want to share the spotlight. So we're narcissistic.
Anyway, so I am not a fan of somebody stopping dairy strictly because they think that a glass
of milk or a piece of cheese is gonna stimulate tumor growth. What people need to understand about
the dairy studies as they were epidemiological which means they were observational, and there
is a fact of life around the world including the United States that in certain populations when
you study them, the people that eat the most dairy and eat the most meat also tend to have a lot of
other lifestyle behaviors that aren't necessarily favorable or healthy. So to simply grab dairy is
the enemy, I wish it was that simple, but the reality is it's a reflection of overall
behavior. It's just like sometimes when you study these smokers, you go oh they're smokers,
they're bad, but the average smoker tends to drink too much, tends to be physically inactive,
tends to have a poor diet, so I know they want to tease out dairy. I just don't like the idea and I
don't know how you feel in oncology; I don't like the idea of telling someone that they have to a
hundred percent eliminate one of the joys of their life if that's what they want once in a while
because that's gonna make or break their prostate cancer. My personal belief is that if all you did
was cut out dairy and it would make or break your prostate cancer, Mark Scholz would never
have a job. If cancer was that simple, there's no way you would have a job. No, I'm being serious.
No, I agree!
And so and so I believe there's what I call deference to cancer. Deference to
cancer is the longer I've been out there, I have realized after 33 years that it is
a far complex heterogeneous disease, and so here's what I would say, Dr. Scholz,
if you like to consume dairy, what does that mean for your general health? Are you gaining weight
on it? Some of the dairies are very high in sugars, like look at some of the milks.
Well, sugar and fat.
Sugar and fat, but the reality is if it's causing you to gain weight,
if it's causing cholesterol changes, if it's causing what I call a general
unhealthy momentum shift, then it is time to cut back on it.
Can I tell you something Dr. Moyad, I love your answer;
it's the truth rather than a simplistic one, and therefore I think it's almost useless.
It seems like the average human—I'm going to insult our audience now.
Oh my gosh
I know I'm not supposed to do that.
Give them your address when you're done.
It is this whole global concept, you shared this at the conference—I
think the comments before last—that the pathway to weight loss may not matter,
it's where do you end up. Are you carrying around a big roll of fat around your middle,
and almost anything you do to get rid of that is going to benefit you.
That's right.
So I think that's that's an excellent answer. For a simplistic person like myself —
Yes.
Okay, let's cut out the meat, let's cut out the — but what I tell my
patients is say consider your meats more like condiments rather than staples. Enjoy them,
but don't build a whole life around them.
That's right, they should be basically a once in a while hobby; they should not be what you're doing
day in and day out, but the reality is I have a saying for this Q&A, and this will be my one
saying—I try to throw in one saying, and I thought what's gonna be the saying when it comes to
diet—it is, you can talk quality your diet all day long, but unless effect it affects the quantity of
something, then what's the point? So you can talk quality all day long, but unless it affects the
quantity of something — what I mean by quantity? Well, I mean your weight. You can change—and
this is what happened in the most recent active surveillance trial which we had a lot of questions
on and diet—if you're not going to change your weight by changing your quality, if you're not
gonna change your cholesterol, if you're not going to change your blood pressure, if you're
not going to change mood, if you're not going to change the staples of health by changing quality,
then I'm not so sure you're gonna get a tangible outcome. So quality matters, but so does quantity,
and I'm not just talking about the quantity of food, quality should change quantity. It should
change the objective numbers that you work with with your physician to become more heart-healthy.