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For Geoff, the decision to take the test for prostate cancer only came after quite a bit of persuasion. He'd had none of the warning signs that would show he had a problem with his prostate - a small gland found only in men which is located below the bladder and is about the size of a walnut - and so assumed he was fine. Thankfully, though, he decided he would take the test: "A friend of mine had prostate cancer five years ago and he said I ought to have this test. I talked to doctors and they said it wasn't a good test, with false positives and negatives. It took me three or four years before I decided to have it. The test results were slightly up for my age. I did it again after another few months and it had gone up quite quickly." It was time for Geoff to act.

Searching for more information, Geoff came upon a surprising obstacle. He says the medical profession had little to offer in the way of useful dietary advice for those suffering with prostate cancer: "By and large, medics don't get that much nutritional training in their medical careers...We did a special Food Programme on BBC Radio 4 and there were two professors on there who both agreed we need more information and research on the role of diet. But it's quite complicated to do, and in whose interest is it to do it? You're not going to get a mega-drug out of it in the end. You're doing something that anyone can do in their own lives so it has to be done in the public interest."

From his research, Geoff took some big decisions about his diet - what to eat more of and what to stop eating all together - all in the hope of reducing the level of what's known as Prostate-Specific Antigen, or PSA, in his body. For a start, Geoff decided there were certain foods he should eat a lot more of: "Onions, garlic and cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cabbage and so on. If you're doing onions and garlic you should cut them and then leave them for ten minutes before you cook them. In that time, the chemicals that are helpful develop. Oily fish, cooked tomatoes, legumes and soya, green tea, pomegranates and raspberries. All kinds of stuff!"

Food for thought from Geoff...

Geoff also decided to cut out dairy products from his diet all together: "It's controversial. The general advice is to minimise it. I decided to remove it...You get very little breast cancer and prostate cancer in Japan where there's virtually no dairy consumption."

With this mixture of conventional medical treatment - including the eventual removal of his prostate gland - and his own strict dietary regime, things are now hopefully looking better for Geoff with his PSA level now close to zero. Of course, Geoff says that he can't advise other prostate cancer sufferers what diet they should follow and he can only speak of his own experiences. He also emphasises: "I did have the treatment and what I've done has been supplementary to the treatment and not instead of it."

However, while a link between cancer and diet is still the subject of a great deal of debate, Geoff certainly believes that he's done himself no harm by taking a close look at his diet and making some big changes. Food for thought, if nothing else, in Geoff's fight against cancer...