Background-Healthful dietary patterns, including eating fruits and vegetables (F&V) and avoiding obesity may decrease the risk of cancer and other chronic diseases. In addition to promoting health for the general population, a cancer diagnosis may provide a "teachable moment," facilitating the adoption of more healthful eating habits and leading to lower risk of chronic disease and better overall health.

Background: Prostate cancer affects one of six men during their lifetime. Dietary factors are postulated to influence the development and progression of prostate cancer. Low-fat diets and flaxseed supplementation may offer potentially protective strategies. Methods: We undertook a multisite, randomized controlled trial to test the effects of low-fat and/or flaxseedsupplemented diets on the biology of the prostate and other biomarkers. Prostate cancer patients (n = 161) scheduled at least 21 days before prostatectomy were randomly assigned to one of the following arms: (a) control (usual diet), (b) flaxseed-supplemented diet (30 g/d), (c) low-fat diet (<20% total energy), or (d) flaxseed-supplemented, low-fat diet. Blood was drawn at baseline and before surgery and analyzed for prostate-specific antigen, sex hormone-binding globulin, testosterone, insulin-like growth factor-I and binding protein-3, C-reactive protein, and total and

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Protein-energy undernutrition has its most devastating consequences during growth. Postal somatic growth now appears to be regulated in large part by the somatomedins, a family of growth hormone-dependent peptide mitogens. This study, using growing rats as the model, was designed to determine the relationship between protein and energy intake and serum immunoreactive somatomedin-C. Four-week-old male Sprague-Dawley rats were fed ad libitum three levels of isoenergetic protein diets (5%, 10%, and 15% lactalbumin) at each of three levels of energy (ad libitum, 75% or 50% of ad libitum quantities). Dietary fat was held constant at 11.9% as cottonseed oil. At 5 weeks of age, serum somatomedin-C concentration was predominately influenced by the dietary protein and increased linearly as protein intake increased from 5% to 15%. at 6, 9, and 12 weeks of age, serum somatomedin-C concentration was influenced by both protein and energy intake, although protein intake appeared to be the more important variable. Serum somatomedin-C was highly correlated with both body weight (r = 0.84, P less than 0.001) and tail length (r = 0.74, P less than 0.01). These results indicate that measurement of immunoreactive somatomedin-C provides a valuable biochemical index of protein-energy nutriture.

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