Diabetes and prostate cancer

ADT drugs can cause a rise in your blood sugar. Doesn’t happen to everybody, my A1C Has stayed in a normal range for many years. Other people have serious problems with it.

One doctor at a conference talked about his problem with fatigue when he was on Zytiga. He increased his prednisone to 7 1/2 mg but it caused him to become prediabetic and raised his blood sugar a lot. I didn’t have that problem when I was on Zytiga but other people do.

Just some examples of problems with Diabetic issues and prostate cancer.

Yes, as Jeff wrote, it's the other way around: prostate-cancer meds can increase your risk of type 2 diabetes.

Less common is steroid-induced diabetes, but I had that in hospital when they were using steroids to try to bring down the swelling in my spine. As soon as we stopped the steroids, the diabetes disappeared on its own, and I didn't need insulin shots any more.

That might be an issue for someone taking Abieraterone, which requires you to take the steroid Prednisone with it. If that happens, you can ask their care team about switching to one of the newer 2nd-gen ARSIs (the -lutamides), which don't require a steroid.

Whenever I took prednisone, my Libre glucose monitor spiked significantly.

I was on 6 months Orgovyx ADT and had intermittent fatigue bouts typically on the golf course on very hot days. Though the bouts were not long they did hit me hard for a few minutes causing me to have to sit down and rest. I am no 6 months post ADT and have not had bouts of fatigue in a while...thank goodness.

I can confirm that along with many significant, abysmal side affects from Lupron (18 mos), the real bonus was elevating from Type II to being full-on Diabetic. Killed anything moderately physical/exercise program. No extra charge.... rlm

@madpuppy74 That totally sucks, and hopefully you will revert back to Type 2 post ADT and then be able to work on that as well.
But there IS a bright side to all of this. Many diabetes drugs - such as Metformin - are used in non conventional medicine for treating prostate cancer (not recommending anyone do that!) and there have even been hearty discussions here on the forum about it.
Of course, you actually do have elevated blood glucose levels to deal with and your RX is not simply adjunctive; but who knows what metabolic pathways both diabetes and PCa actually share? You may come out of this even better than you’re seeing it right now. Hang in there,
Phil

My HbA1c has just tipped into pre-diabetic territory again (thanks, Christmas baking!) but I've brought it down into normal range before with moderate physical activity and minor dietary changes (reasonable moderation, not self-denial), and will do that again.

It's something we have to monitor constantly when we're on hormone therapy for prostate cancer, sadly.

p.s. I had 2 weeks of enforced inactivity just before that test because of my retinal detachment and recovery, and perhaps that also influenced the result??