Hormone Treatment: No Benefit for Localized Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer is the most common kind of cancer amongst men. And a significant number of men with low-grade prostate cancer get the same surgery, radiation and hormone therapy (primary androgen-deprivation therapy) that is used for aggressive prostate cancer. But is this aggressive treatment justified? . . .

There is no data to support the use of androgen-deprivation therapy for early-stage prostate cancer. So researchers set out to see if this common practice is justified.

They followed 66,717 men with localized prostate cancer for an average of 110 months. Shockingly, they found that androgen-deprivation therapy is not associated with any improvement in 15-year overall survival or 15-year prostate cancer-specific survival: survival times were virtually identical with and without the hormone therapy.

The researchers concluded that the commonly used androgen-deprivation therapy has absolutely no benefit for men with localized prostate cancer.

Several natural remedies, however, including lycopene and pomegranate juice, have been shown to slow prostate cancer down (See our book, The Family Naturopathic Encylopedia). 

JAMA Intern Med 2014;174:1460-7

For the latest research to keep your family healthy, get The Natural Path delivered to your inbox each month: Subscribe!