Once a rather taboo subject, the health care of men’s prostate has become more and more studied and reported upon. It is estimated that one in 6 men in the United States will get prostate cancer.  It is the 2^nd leading cause of cancer death in men and one man in every 35 who have prostate cancer will die from it.¹ 

Fortunately, researchers are helping doctors catch this disease earlier and looking for new treatments that can greatly enhance the survival rate.  One recent study by a collaboration of scientists from Harvard School of Medical Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital,  Orebro University Hospital and The National Institute of Environmental Medicine in Sweden wanted to know whether dietary intakes of vitamin B-6, folate, riboflavin, vitamin B-12 and methionine (an essential amino acid found in most proteins) would be influential in prostate cancer survival.²

The researchers headed by Dr. Julie L. Kasperzyk studied a total of 525 Swedish men with known abnormal cellular growth of the prostate. When they looked at vitamin B6 intake, it was found that those men who were in the highest 25% of intake were 29% less likely to die during this study period, which lasted up to twenty years, compared to those men in the lowest 25% of intake. Only those who were not in an advanced stage of the disease appeared to benefit from a higher vitamin B6 intake.  An increased intake of the other vitamins and methionine within the study also did not appear to influence the results one way or another.

According to Kasperzyk, "What is most relevant to prostate cancer is the potential link between vitamin B-6 and reduced responsiveness of the prostate to testosterone.  It is well known that testosterone helps fuel prostate tumor growth and spread, and lab research suggests that B-6 can dampen that response."  She went on to explain, "We did not directly measure this relationship in our study, but it provides a plausible explanation."²