Strict diet program may help prostate cancer

A strict vegetarian diet combined with relaxation therapy and exercise may be able to control slow-growing prostate cancer, researchers said on Thursday.

Diet guru Dr. Dean Ornish said his vegan diet program, which some studies have suggested can reverse heart disease, also seemed to halt the progression of prostate cancer.

Tests on middle-aged and elderly men who had opted to watch indolent prostate tumors rather than treat them suggested the program slowed the growth of their cancers, Ornish said.

"This is not the definitive study, but it certainly advances the field and it adds new information about how powerful these simple changes can be," Ornish said in a telephone interview.

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