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jeff Marchi avatar

Exercise as a Prostate Cancer treatment

Prostate Cancer | Last Active: Feb 7 11:14pm | Replies (65)

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@heavyphil Newton claims the evidence is in, and it will change what prostate cancer patients are prescribed as first line treatments.

Eg. My RO said if I accept ADT to go along with the radiation treatment he's going to give me, my chances of survival will be approximately 20% better compared to RT alone. After all the standard of care for my case is RT plus ADT. He didn't prescribe or bring up exercise. He didn't tell me exercise was bad. He just didn't see any particular form of it as part of the standard of care he routinely prescribes. Newton is saying why not?

Newton points to the CHALLENGE trial which got an eye opening plenary session presentation at this year's ASCO conference, which found that prescribed supervised exercise increased colon cancer patient survival by more than what my RT claimed ADT could do.

I'm asked to accept the possible debilitating side effects of ADT for a benefit. I'm not asked to seek an exercise prescription from someone like Newton or do the best that I can on my own, even though it appears very likely the right amount and type of exercise regularly applied would give an equal or better benefit. And, the well known "side effects" of exercise are positive, compared to the negatives of ADT.

Newton has a prostate cancer specific randomized trial going aimed at proving similar result as the CHALLENGE trial, for prostate patients. He's been studying exercise as medicine, with a great interest in prostate cancer, for decades.

His remarks on aerobic exercise are made in a context - he was discussing a particular patient he was treating as part of a study he was doing. He understands the importance of aerobic exercise as well as resistance training, but the patient was on his way downhill and Newton was discussing the factors he was considering in his approach to reverse the patient's direction.

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Replies to "@heavyphil Newton claims the evidence is in, and it will change what prostate cancer patients are..."

@climateguy It’s unfortunate that your RO did not mention exercise as part of the comprehensive protocol.
My RO’s PA sat down with me and discussed its importance. When I told her that I already exercised regularly she said ‘great’. But it was members of this forum who posted various articles and videos which really underscored the necessity of going the extra mile.
I was unaware of Newton’s work in the area of PCa but if there are valid results which show benefit then they should be included automatically when ADT is proposed. Best,
Phil