Music lifts our spirits during the best of times, so it’s no surprise that many people turn to music in times of poor health. For Dana Jennings, a Times editor who writes every week about coping with prostate cancer, music is an important part of his treatment.

“While the hormone shots and the radiation sessions are essential, they don’t tell the whole treatment tale,” he writes in his latest piece, “Notes to Soothe the Savage Cells.” “I’m a music-obsessive, and I can’t imagine having prostate cancer without listening to just the right music to complement my moods: joy and sadness, anger and gratitude, fear and doubt.”

For Dana, listening to heavy metal music helps him manage the anger of cancer. This week, he offers his own personal playlist of “music to have cancer by.” Among his favorites, “Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley, “Moanin’ at Midnight” by Howlin’ Wolf and “Hurt” by Johnny Cash.

Whether music has played an important role in your own cancer or other treatment, or if music is essential to your workout, we want to hear from you. Help us create a soundtrack for health, by sharing the most important song from your own personal health playlist. Tell us how the song helps you, and why it should be included on a soundtrack for health.

If we pick your submission, you’ll receive a signed copy of Dana’s latest book, “Sing Me Back Home: Love, Death and Country Music.”

Share your songs and your stories below. We’ll pick our favorites and post the entire playlist with song links.

Every week, New York Times editor Dana Jennings writes about his experiences living with prostate cancer. This week, instead of his regular blog post, Dana has invited us into his home to meet his family and learn more about his treatment in the latest Well video, “Living With Prostate Cancer,” produced by my colleague, Times video journalist Dave Frank.

In the video, he talks about the overwhelming response from readers since he began writing about his cancer in mid-November.

“I think being willing to be blunt and honest about having prostate cancer really gave this group of men and women permission to talk about things that I don’t think any of them have talked about,” Dana says. “Literally, I feel since that first post went up on November 11, that my life has changed.”

Hear more from Dana by watching the full video, below. Then join in the discussion by adding a comment. To read all of Dana’s past posts about living with prostate cancer, click on the Prostate Cancer Journal icon, “One Man’s Story,” above.

Every week, New York Times editor Dana Jennings shares his experiences coping with prostate cancer.

By Dana Jennings

Dana Jennings. (Lonnie Schlein/The New York Times)

Well, I can’t say I wasn’t warned. Eight months after learning that I had prostate cancer, my sex drive has vanished into a drug-induced limbo.

As recently as two weeks ago, my libido hadn’t yet checked out. But since then, hormone injections — like the oncologist’s elves — have kept doing their job, which is to suppress testosterone. No testosterone, no sex drive, and, my doctors and I hope, eventually no prostate cancer.

But even with the promise of being cured, the physical changes in my sex life and, more shockingly, my recent loss of interest in sex, are among the most difficult aspects of having prostate cancer — not just for me, but for my wife, too. Men often don’t want to talk about these changes, as if words and impotence couldn’t possibly coexist.

But we men need to talk about it. Silence is the enemy when it comes to any disease. If we can talk about it, it will help us, help our spouses and help those who come after us. Read more…

Every week, New York Times editor Dana Jennings shares his experiences coping with prostate cancer.

By Dana Jennings

Dana Jennings. (Lonnie Schlein/The New York Times)

Prostate cancer is a dark waltz, not the raging battle of popular imagination. From that first elevated PSA blood test, to the biopsy, to treatment, to those evil twins of impotence and incontinence and beyond, I’m still learning some very complicated steps more than seven months after my diagnosis.

Cancer is a hard teacher. No matter how much you glean from the Web, how many fellow travelers you talk to, how many questions you ask nurses and doctors, there are some lessons — physical, practical, emotional — that can only be learned firsthand.

I confess that I feel utterly vulnerable. But, as the poet Theodore Roethke wrote, “Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among the mysteries.” So, as I continue to move among these mysteries, here are 10 nuggets of prostate cancer wisdom that I had to learn for myself. Read more…

Hormone therapy to shrink or slow the growth of prostate cancer is one of the most common treatments for the disease. New York Times editor Dana Jennings, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer earlier this year, talks about his own treatment with the drug Lupron.

By Dana Jennings

The day after my most recent hormone injection for prostate cancer, I told my wife, Deb, that I had a headache, hot flashes, cramps and was very, very hungry.

Dana Jennings. (Lonnie Schlein/The New York Times)

She said, “Sweetie, you’re having your period.” We both laughed. (Laughter is a crucial therapy in my treatment.)

Those are just a few of the side effects I’ve been experiencing on Lupron, which is part of the hormonal treatment for my advanced case of prostate cancer. Lupron is a testosterone suppressant, designed to starve hormone-dependent cancer cells of the fuel (testosterone) that they crave in order to grow. My doctors believe, and studies indicate, that using hormonal therapy to complement my radiation treatments, which are scheduled to start next month, will give me a better chance of being cured, of survival.

In the past couple weeks, I’ve also had back, joint and muscle aches, random itchiness: that spider-crawling-on-your-skin feeling, cotton mouth, sudden fatigue and fleeting bursts of pain in my jaw, chest and armpits. These are not complaints, just observations.

Oh, and my testicles are shrinking. Read more…

More than two million American men are currently living with prostate cancer, yet the national conversation about the disease consistently falls short. My colleague Dana Jennings, a writer and editor for The Times, was diagnosed with prostate cancer seven months ago. He has generously offered to share some of his experiences with the disease as a regular contributor to the Well blog.

By Dana Jennings

There is no such thing as a “good cancer.” When my prostate cancer was diagnosed last April, I can’t tell you how many well-meaning friends and acquaintances said: “At least you have a good cancer.” What they were trying to say is that prostate cancer is often very treatable when detected in its early stages. Even so, nearly 30,000 American men died last year of “the good cancer.”

Dana Jennings. (Lonnie Schlein/The New York Times)

My cancer did appear to fall within the range of the ordinary. Treatment is still treatment, though, and a prostatectomy, no matter the method, is major surgery, with the twin shadows of impotence and incontinence always present.

But after my radical open prostatectomy on July 7, the pathology report revealed that my cancer wasn’t so ordinary, after all, and showed what one doctor called a “somewhat extraordinary scenario.” My apparently run-of-the-mill prostate cancer was actually an aggressive star among such cancers.

Rather than being a typically slow and pokey prostate cancer, mine had marched beyond the prostate and invaded a seminal vesicle and other tissue. It was a pure and aggressive prostate cancer. Read more…

A major trial studying whether simple nutritional supplements could lower a man’s risk for prostate cancer has ended amidst worries that the treatments may do more harm than good.

The SELECT trial, which stands for the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial, was studying whether selenium and vitamin E, either alone or in combination, could lower a man’s risk for prostate cancer. More than 35,000 men were taking part, making it one of the largest and best studies of a vitamin or supplement.

But the National Cancer Institute announced Monday that the trial, which was scheduled to end in 2011 after seven years, is being halted early. A review of the data shows no benefit in using the supplements to prevent prostate cancer. In addition, slightly more users of vitamin E were getting prostate cancer, and slightly more selenium-only users were developing diabetes.

The findings are a major setback in the effort to prevent prostate cancer, which is diagnosed in about 200,000 men in the United States each year. While most men diagnosed with the disease are cured, treatments can be debilitating, rendering men incontinent and impotent. Read more…

Most research on prostate cancer focuses on cure rates, but increasingly researchers are paying attention to the quality of a man’s life after prostate cancer treatment.

Last week, the Well blog highlighted a new study showing that one in five men regrets his treatment choice. The story generated much discussion from readers, many of whom felt like the focus should have been on the 80 percent of men who are happy with their decision. Some noted that men should just be grateful to be alive, whereas others chimed in that more attention needs to be paid to the struggles of men coping with impotence and incontinence after surgery.

To talk more about the issue, I spoke with the study’s lead author, Dr. Florian R. Schroeck, resident in the division of urology at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. He noted that part of the problem for men is that there are no clear guidelines on the best treatment for prostate cancer.

“It’s not showing that we aren’t treating patients well,” Dr. Schroeck said. “I just think this is coming from the fact that the decision-making process for patients is particularly difficult for prostate cancer.”

So what is a man to do when faced with a diagnosis of prostate cancer? Read more…

A man’s risk for prostate cancer appears to increase with his height, a new study shows.

Height appears to play less of a role than other known prostate cancer risk factors like age, family history and race. As a result, men shouldn’t make screening or treatment decisions based on their height. But the findings may open up a new line of scientific inquiry into the causes of prostate cancer.

Researchers from four universities in England studied more than 9,000 men with and without prostate cancer and found that the tallest men had a 19 percent higher risk of developing prostate cancer than shorter men. Using the shortest men as a baseline, the study showed that risk increased 6 percent for every additional 4 inches in height. The report, published in the September issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, showed an even stronger association between height and aggressive cancers. Read more…

One in five men who undergoes prostate surgery to treat cancer later regrets the decision, a new study shows. And surprisingly, regret is highest among men who opt for robotic prostatectomy, a minimally invasive surgery that is growing in popularity as a treatment.

The research, published in the medical journal European Urology, is the latest to suggest that technological advances in prostate surgery haven’t necessarily translated to better results for the men on which it is performed. It also adds to growing concerns that men are being misled about the real risks and benefits of robotic surgical procedures used to treat prostate cancer.

Of the 219,000 men in the United States who learn they have prostate cancer each year, nearly half undergo surgical removal of the gland, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Duke University researchers surveyed 400 men with early prostate cancer who had undergone either a traditional “open” surgical procedure or newer robotic surgery to remove the prostate. Overall, the vast majority of men were satisfied. However, 19 percent regretted their treatment choice. Notably, men who had undergone robotic surgery were four times more likely to regret their choice than men who had undergone the open procedure. Read more…

The notion that there is ever a good time to stop looking for cancer is hard to grasp. But that’s the message delivered last week by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which recommended that men ages 75 and older no longer be screened for prostate cancer.

As I explain in my Well column this week, the task force’s recommendations highlight the fact that there is always a downside to early detection. It’s not the simple blood test that puts men at risk, but the fact that many men have such slow-growing cancers that finding them and treating them likely does more harm than good.

I think Dr. Peter B. Bach, a pulmonologist and epidemiologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, explained it best.

“It’s just a needle stick, but the cascade of events that follows are fairly serious,” Dr. Bach said. “I think the burden is on medicine to try and generate some evidence that the net benefits are there before drawing that tube of blood.”

To read more, check out the full Well column here.

And to learn more about the issues men with prostate cancer face, look around the Well blog for other posts on prostate cancer. In Sex After Prostate Surgery, readers talked about how statistics can mislead men trying understand how their sex lives may be changed by prostate surgery. Another post, No Answers for Men With Prostate Cancer, explained why experts can’t recommend any one treatment over another one, and often can’t say whether treatment is appropriate at all. And Cancer Funding: Does It Add Up? shows that funding for research into prostate cancer lags that of other illnesses.

Men ages 75 and older should not be screened for prostate cancer. This is the important and definitive conclusion of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which for the first time has made a specific recommendation about the value of screening for prostate cancer.

To many doctors, the new guidelines will not come as a shock. Quite a few believe that because prostate cancer often progresses slowly, not causing symptoms for 10 years or longer, it’s inappropriate to look for it in healthy older men. A man aged 75 or older may well die of another cause long before his prostate cancer becomes a problem. And treatment of prostate cancer has significant drawbacks, often leading to impotence, incontinence and a variety of other complications that reduce a patient’s quality of life.

But what doctors know and what happens in practice often are two different things. Read more…

Men share their stories of prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment.

For men facing prostate cancer, some of the best information about treatment options and side effects doesn’t come from doctors, but from other men who have faced the disease.

The latest “Patient Voices” feature from my colleague Karen Barrow focuses on men with prostate cancer. Listen to the stories of men diagnosed with prostate cancer and their experiences making decisions about treatment and coping with side effects.

To hear more from men with prostate cancer, you may also want to check out my earlier post called “Sex After Prostate Surgery” and the more than 200 comments from readers.

Click here to listen to “Patient Voices,” and post your comments below.

A mouse study suggests diet affects prostate cancer risk. (Ruth Fremson/The New York Times)

Cutting back on fried foods and baked goods may lower a man’s risk for prostate cancer, a new animal study suggests.

Scientists at Jonsson Cancer Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, focused on fat from corn oil, which is made up primarily of omega-6 fatty acids. That’s the type of polyunsaturated fat typically used in high levels in processed baked goods and fried foods. The healthiest fats are omega-3 fatty acids, like those found in fish, or monounsaturated fat, the kind found in foods like almonds, pecans, cashew nuts, peanuts, avocados and olive and canola oil. Read more…

Most cancer survivors are just as overweight and inactive as everyone else, a new study shows.

An analysis of data collected from more than 114,000 adults in Canada shows that overall, a cancer diagnosis doesn’t appear to prompt significant changes in eating habits or increase physical activity, according to a report in Cancer, the medical journal of the American Cancer Society. The big exception is men who survive prostate cancer, who appear to be far more active than similar men without cancer.

But the overall findings are troubling because studies have suggested that cancer patients have much to gain from a healthful lifestyle. Obesity and physical inactivity are linked with a lower quality of life among cancer survivors and may increase the risk of the cancer coming back or death from the disease.

“These findings tell us that we need to look at ways to better support cancer survivors to become more active and to maintain a healthy body weight,” said Kerry Courneya, professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, in a press release. “We know that physical inactivity and obesity are risk factors for developing cancer. These are also risk factors for the recurrence of cancer. Lifestyle is just as important after diagnosis.”

The researchers compared data on activity and weight to national averages among the Canadian population. There were surprisingly few differences, suggesting that a cancer diagnosis doesn’t necessarily encourage more healthful living. The main exception was among prostate cancer survivors, who were 27 percent more likely to be active and about 30 percent less likely to be obese than the general population. The study authors didn’t have an explanation for the difference except that men may have been influenced by recent studies suggesting a link between exercise and better quality of life for prostate cancer survivors.

However, it’s not clear if the lower body mass index among prostate cancer survivors is a good thing because some data suggest prostate cancer treatments can lead to loss of lean body mass.

Other findings of the study showed:

• About 21 percent of cancer survivors are physically active, compared to about 25 percent of Canadians in general.
• Among cancer survivors, about 18 percent are obese and 34 percent are overweight. By comparison, about 15 percent of Canadians overall are obese and 37 percent are overweight.
• Male cancer survivors were more likely to be overweight or obese than female cancer survivors (62 percent versus 47 percent).
• The lowest levels of physical activity were among colorectal cancer survivors, breast cancer survivors and female melanoma survivors.
• Male skin cancer survivors were more active than the rest of the population, but that difference may simply reflect the fact that active people who spend a lot of time outdoors are more likely to develop skin cancer.