Diet after Radiation treatment and on ORGOVYX or other ADT drugs

I made no diet changes specifically for my 20 rounds of SBRT to the prostate, except for avoiding caffeine in the morning before treatments (because you have to go in with a full bladder, and as a diuretic, caffeine can make holding that in the waiting room challenging). I was still in a wheelchair at the time.

If your medical team doesn't direct otherwise, I suggest that you not worry about changing your diet during radiation unless you experience discomfort, then adjust as needed.

Diets are tough. For instance, many of us eat have started eating more veggies as we’ve gotten older and that’s good - they’re high in fiber. Myself, I eat a lot of beans and corn and it helps keep me regular.
But I’ve read here and on other sites that you are to avoid gassy foods and high residue foods while on radiation. So I’m gonna get screwed when I finally start radiation (increasing PSA); I already take MiraLax daily since my surgery almost 5 yrs ago - nobody will fess up but something got damaged and messed up my rectum.
Anyway, anyone have a suggestion for dealing with this? I’m sure you guys (and gals) know more than the robots at Sloan

Yes, I agree!

I have also experienced QT-interval prolongation on ADT (and Erleada), but after extensive testing at our local Heart Institute, the cardiologist told me there's nothing to worry about, and even cleared me to shovel snow (!!!)

It's important to have good monitoring and care when you're living with cancer, but there's also a tendency to overpathologise us sometimes, building mountains out of every molehill.

Of course, I don't know which molehills are potential mountains. so I still have to follow up on every one with my medical team. But I don't worry about them as much as I used to.

Northoftheborder,
They are all good suggestions. I have been taking ORGOVYX from April 1st and I still have 2 more radiation treatments left out of five. I am going to get a base line ECG next week or so to get a baseline QT prolongation.
I had two stents placed in 2019 based on routine stress test with no symptoms!

Obviously, talk to your medical team before changing anything.

With ADT, you're basically being pushed into menopause, so you need to pay attention to the same things a menopausal woman would.

Your blood iron will likely fall, you might gain weight, and you risk losing bone density and muscle mass. You also have a slightly higher risk of heart attack.

So try to get a reasonable amount of iron and calcium (either in your diet or via supplements), do light resistance training to maintain bone and muscle mass (weights, exercise bands, squats, pushups. and/or even just things like digging in the garden), and get a lot of moderate cardio exercise (e.g. long, brisk walks) to maintain heart health.

It's all common-sense stuff. If you have physical disabilities, a physiotherapist can help you figure out alternative exercises. A registered dietician can help design a vegan diet that meets your extra needs.

You may have been doing most of these things before, but now you need to be mindful and deliberate about them. Keeping a log (in a paper notebook or app) might help.

I stopped taking COQ10 and multivitamin. but continue taking vitamin D 2000IU and B12. I will be meeting a dietician at UCLA on April 16th either before or after my radiation treatment.

My RO and MO did not recommend any particular diet during my 28 proton radiation treatments, except to avoid anything “gassy.” On my own, I went to a more heart-healthy diet. (They say that a heart-healthy diet is a prostate-healthy diet.)

Regarding anti-oxidants --> During Dr. Rossi’s presentation during the 2023 PCRI mid-year conference (https://www.youtube.com/live/WTqPnSRYtW4?si=TJqlXROs0cAzIJ0W) at about timestamp 4:37:00, he talks about taking supplements and anti-oxidants during radiation treatments.

He mentions that some say that what you're doing is you're preventing free radicals from being generated by the radiation so you are limiting the effect of radiation. Others say that it makes no difference, radiation is so much more energy why worry about it. And others even say to take all that stuff because it's going to help the radiation.

In that presentation, Dr. Rossi says that we create so many free radicals that it probably doesn't make a difference but, he tells patients to look at data from head and neck cancer radiotherapy studies (not prostate) where patients were being given a prescription strength antioxidant because the idea was this could prevent them from getting other cancers in the upper digestive tract, and in those patients it looked like the radiation was slightly less effective at controlling their primary tumor. But, those were strong antioxidants, not what you'll be able to get at your local health food store.

That said, he said that if you want to be as conservative as you possibly can, stop taking the supplements during the treatment; you can resume the day you're done because the free radicals that radiation creates when he radiates the prostate (that's what breaks the DNA) lasts for about 10 to the minus 4 seconds after the beam shuts off every day. So, he tells his patients that it probably doesn't make a difference but, if they want to be ultra conservative then just eliminate anything which is a free radical scavenger during treatment.

No antioxidants during radiation therapy. B12 and bone density medications/tests during hormone therapy. Sufficient protein during radiation for tissue healing.

My oncologist recommended to me a plant based diet and he advised that it might help and it certainly would not hurt. I am on that diet, however I have a piece of chicken and a little cheese ( mostly milk based ) and an ice cream once a week. I have been on this diet for about a year and I like it.