Eating well is important before, during and after treatment for prostate cancer. It can help you feel better, have more energy, keep up your strength and lower your risk of infection. It can also help you prepare for surgery and speed your recovery after cancer treatment. It may even help keep your cancer from coming back.
Exercise can also play a part in prostate cancer. Studies have found that people who get regular exercise have a slightly lower risk of prostate cancer. Vigorous activity may have a greater effect, especially on the risk of advanced prostate cancer. For those with the disease, exercise is linked to better survival. Exercise can also improve some of the unwanted effects of prostate cancer treatment. For example, it can help offset loss of bone and muscle mass, which may happen with hormone therapy. Kegel exercises, which strengthen the pelvic floor, can improve urine leakage, a possible side effect of prostate cancer surgery.
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How Fred Hutch Recommends Patients Integrate Diet and Exercise into Prostate Cancer Treatment
Fred Hutch Cancer Center has registered dietitians and physical therapists with extensive training in cancer care. These members of your care team can help you feel your best throughout treatment and get the best possible results.
Working With a Registered Dietitian
A good guideline is to eat a mostly plant-based diet with only moderate amounts of animal-based foods. A registered dietitian can work with you on a custom nutrition plan to promote your general health and to meet specific goals, like improving treatment-related fatigue.
“Often, patients are surprised to know that food is important in cancer prevention and survivorship,” said Kerry K. McMillen, MS, RD, director of Oncology Supportive Care and Screening. “Our registered dietitians have specific expertise to address diet recommendations that help patients live their best lives.”
Medical Nutrition Services at Fred Hutch has registered dietitians who not only help manage treatment-related symptoms but proactively help patients maintain strength and healthy body tissue, both during treatment and afterward.
How a Physical Therapist Can Help
A physical therapist (PT) can teach you exercises for overall strength, balance and function. They can also help with issues linked to prostate cancer and its treatment, like reducing pain you might have from scar tissue after surgery. The Institute for Prostate Cancer Research, a collaboration between Fred Hutch and UW Medicine, has a video library on exercise and prostate cancer.
“Exercise can be for anyone, no matter what their ability, what their age, what their background is. There’s a program for everyone out there,” said Matt Van Doren, BS, BA, an exercise physiologist who leads the Fred Hutch Exercise Research Center.
Together, diet and exercise affect weight. This matters because excess weight is linked with prostate cancer getting worse. At Fred Hutch, researchers are looking into this connection. In a study in the journal Cancer, Jonathan L. Wright, MD, MS, and a team of Fred Hutch researchers showed that a diet and exercise program led to weight loss and improved glucose-regulation biomarkers among overweight and obese men with prostate cancer on active surveillance. This study lays the groundwork for future research on the ways lifestyle might affect prostate cancer outcomes.
At Fred Hutch, your care team will help you tailor your nutrition choices and activity level to you. For example, if you plan to have surgery, your care team may recommend starting pelvic-floor exercises, like Kegels, in advance to reduce urine leakage afterward.