Best Diet to Help Treat Prostate Cancer During Radiation
If you’re undergoing radiation treatment for prostate cancer, here’s how you should change your diet to ensure that both diet and medical treatment work most effectively.
During Radiation Treatement: What to Eat and Why
“Depending on the type of radiation and technique used, some radiation treatments to the pelvis/prostate can often lead to urinary dysfunction and/or diarrhea,” says Crystal Langlois, RD, LD, Director of Nutrition, Cancer Treatment Centers of America at Southeastern Regional Medical Center.
“Proper hydration, particularly with water, and limiting foods or beverages with caffeine can be effective,” continues Langlois.
“It may be beneficial for patients to maintain adequate hydration during the day while decreasing fluid intake at night to reduce frequency of getting up to use the restroom at night.”
Diarrhea
“Dietary management to help minimize diarrhea may require restricting milk products or purchasing low lactose products.
“Following a low residue diet can also be helpful to decrease frequency of bowel movements.
“A low residue diet includes avoiding greasy fatty fried foods, restricting fiber intake — particularly whole grains, nuts, corn and legumes.
“If watery diarrhea persists, adding soluble fiber such as applesauce or psyllium products can help to bulk your stool.
“Choosing canned fruits/veggies in place of fresh or frozen are also beneficial to decrease frequency of bowel movements.
If diarrhea becomes severe, electrolyte imbalances can occur. It may be beneficial to add clear juice, broth or electrolyte replacement drinks to your diet and consult your physician if medication or pharmacologic intervention needed.”
Not Experiencing Diarrhea?
During prostate cancer treatment or any cancer treatment for that matter, healthy diet is crucial to aid in recovery.
For those not suffering from diarrhea induced by radiation, fresh produce should be part of the dietary plan.
Furthermore, the diet you should have during prostate cancer treatment (save for special considerations to manage diarrhea) is the same diet anyone should have to lower the risk of cancer and other disease.
• Plant based – fresh produce as the main course and meats on the side
• Emphasis on foods in their natural state (e.g., an apple rather than bottled apple juice)
• High in fiber (unless, again, you’re struggling with diarrhea)
• Inclusion of fish
• Whole grains instead of processed
• Minimal intake of added sugars, if at all
• Poultry and beef in whole natural form rather than processed
• Grass-fed beef rather than grain-fed
• Beans, nuts, raisins and fruit for snacks rather than candy, cookies, chips or other munchies
For additional information on how to eat your healthiest during prostate cancer treatment, contact Cancer Treatment Centers of America at (855) 993-3381.
Crystal Langlois
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
Top image: Shutterstock/Chinnapong
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How Dangerous Is High Blood Pressure in Teens?
Teens can get very sick from high blood pressure; a young body offers NO protection against the dangers of high blood pressure.
“High blood pressure in teens is dangerous,” says Dr. Lisa Lewis, MD, a board certified pediatrician in Fort Worth, Texas, and author of “Feed the Baby Hummus, Pediatrician-Backed Secrets from Cultures Around the World.”
Dr. Lewis explains, “It’s called ‘the silent killer’ because many teens and adults don’t realize their blood pressure is high.
“The longer a teenager sits with high blood pressure, the more the risk of complications occurs.
“Adolescent high blood pressure may cause damage to the heart and blood vessels.
“Prolonged high blood pressure in teens into adulthood dramatically increases the risk of heart attack, aneurysm and stroke later in life.”
An aneurysm is a bulge in a blood vessel. This bulge can occur at any point along the aorta or in the brain. If it ruptures, death can occur within minutes.
It Can’t Be Said Too Much
Teens can suffer from organ damage stemming from high blood pressure, says the American Heart Association Council on Hypertension.
• Damage to the heart
• Damage to the blood vessels
“At any age, high blood pressure can be dangerous for the body,” continues Dr. Lewis.
“Although not as common, some teens with high blood pressure have undiagnosed kidney disease, and this could lead to kidney failure.”
Study Shows High Blood Pressure Is Harmful to Teenagers
• 180 teens 914-17) were in the study, led by Elaine M. Urbina, MD, director of preventive cardiology, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, OH.
• Organ damage (heart, vessel) was found in the mid-risk and high-risk groups.
“Some adolescents may have organ damage related to blood pressure and are not targeted for therapy,” points out Dr. Urbina in the Sept. 2017 report.
Imaging of the heart for teens with hypertension may prove useful to determine the extent of therapy.
Having 25+ years’ experience, Dr. Lewis completed her pediatrics residency at Texas A&M University Health Science Center, Scott and White Memorial Hospital. For two years afterward she was assistant professor in the department of pediatrics at Texas A&M University Health Science Center.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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Top image: Freepik
Source: sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170917150952.htm
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Why Isn’t Ultrasound Standard for Breast Cancer Screening?
If false positive rates of ultrasound screening cause anxiety & unnecessary biopsies, isn’t this worth the breast cancer it’ll catch that a mammogram misses, even if it’s just a handful of patients?
Ultrasound is frequently recommended after a mammogram reveals a suspicious mass.
An ultrasound can give additional information on a concerning mass that shows up on mammography.
Furthermore, women at high risk for breast cancer are sometimes encouraged to supplement the annual mammogram with a screening ultrasound.
So why isn’t it standard for screening?
“Ultrasound is not standard for breast cancer screenings,” says Dennis Citrin, MD, PhD, a board-certified medical oncologist who works with a team of experts to help patients fight breast cancer at City of Hope Chicago.
“Again, screenings are looking for the first signs of disease in a totally asymptomatic woman,” continues Dr. Citrin.
“With a mammogram, you are looking at the entire breast. If an ultrasound is used, it is typically after a woman has felt a lump and the ultrasound is used as a direct exam.
“The technician is looking at the exact spot that the patient and physician felt the lump, or the screening mammogram showed as a problem area.
“Some centers may use ultrasound more frequently, but it is not a screening tool. Additionally, in most hospital systems, a technician performs the ultrasound, not the physician.
“Ultrasounds are not cost effective, as they take up a lot of time and are very much a real time examination.”
If the millions of women every year who undergo a mammogram were to replace that procedure with a screening ultrasound of their breasts – in a parallel world where screening ultrasounds are the standard … there’d very likely be a medically unacceptable rate of false positives.
What initially happens in such cases is that a suspicious area shows up on the US.
This then causes untold anxiety, sleepless nights and possibly leads to an unnecessary biopsy that turns out negative.
This entire process can drag on for weeks, what with scheduling appointments for repeat (targeted) ultrasounds, the wait-and-see-if-it-grows approach and then finally the biopsy.
This scenario would likely play out many times in a world in which ultrasound screenings for breast cancer are the standard.
And those suspicious-looking but ultimately benign masses that are detected by ultrasound, in many cases, would not have been picked up by a mammogram – thus sparing many women prolonged anxiety.
The false positive rate for mammography is statistically significantly lower than it is for US.
The ultrasound can be too sensitive for the patient’s own good, which is why it’s not a standard screening tool for breast cancer.
US Has Its Place
However, it’s invaluable as a diagnostic undertaking following concerning mammogram results, or for women who have a high risk of breast cancer due to dense breasts, says a study (Berg et al) in a 2015 JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Furthermore, in women under 40 who have palpable breast lumps, ultrasound serves as a very effective diagnostic tool, says a study in American Journal of Roentgenology (2012).
“In women under 40, ultrasound is better at evaluating breast lumps compared to mammography,” says Constance Lehman, MD, in the AJR report.
“Mammography is still our best tool for screening women 40 and older, but targeted ultrasound is our tool of choice in evaluating symptomatic women under 40.”
A study in a 2015 Lancet (Ohuchi et al) acknowledges that previous studies have shown an unacceptably high false positive rate with US.
However, the Ohuchi study—which was carried out in Japan—showed only a small false positive rate that the authors believe could be even further reduced when ultrasound and mammogram results are analyzed together.
In America, mammograms remain the standard screening tool for women at average risk for breast cancer because they are more cost effective, have a lower false positive rate than does US, and because there’ve been no large-scale studies showing that ultrasound — as a screening tool for women at average risk of BC — saves more lives when compared to just mammography.
Dennis Citrin, MD, is board certified in medical oncology with 30+ years’ experience, devotes his practice exclusively to patients with breast cancer and other high-risk breast conditions. He is the author of the book, “Knowledge is Power: What Every Woman Should Know About Breast Cancer.”
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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