Insulin resistance following RP

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User

Posted 26 Mar 2023 at 14:49

Hi all, it’s a year since my husband underwent RP and his recovery has been good with undetectable PSA levels so far (everything crossed). However, an unrelated blood test last week has revealed he is now pre-diabetic. Bit of shock. He is pretty active, walks around 18 miles a week, has a healthy diet and doesn’t carry any excess weight (maybe a little more rounded since surgery). He will be 69 next week. I have since learnt that low testosterone levels can lead to insulin resistance. We can make some minor tweaks with diet but nothing drastic (life is for living right) and not sure where we go from here?

Anyone else find themselves in this position following treatment or surgery?

User

Posted 26 Mar 2023 at 18:50

Hi, from what I've seen surgery doesn't usually effect testosterone unless you had hormones as well for some reason such as a delay to treatment.

Does pre-diabetic actually mean he's going to be diabetic or is it just a raised cholesterol. Cholesterol can rise and take months to decline if you have a binge spell of high fat. Saturated fats are bad news and often hidden unless you read labels.

I'm not an expert but have been working on reducing cholesterol and refused the statins. I need now to go back to see if it's gone down and maybe have the statin.

All the best

User

Posted 28 Mar 2023 at 12:51

Thanks for your reply. He hasn’t any HT “only” RP. He takes statins anyway so this is raised insulin levels which we really are at a loss with. Hey ho, he definitely doesn’t want Type 2 diabetes so we will be even stricter with the diet 😞 just seems a bit of a coincidence and wondered if there was a link with removal of prostate.

User

Posted 28 Mar 2023 at 23:21

There is certainly one clinician who thinks that low Testosterone (but not as low as hormone therapy levels) may be a cause of prostate cancer. Low Testosterone is also a cause of diabetes. Any idea what his Testosterone level is?

I don't think the diabetes can be caused by the prostatectomy.

If he is put onto an anti-diabetic drug, Metformin would be a good choice, as it's been shown that diabetics treated with Metformin have a lower risk of recurrence of prostate cancer. Other anti-diabetic drugs don't have this additional effect.

Edited by member 28 Mar 2023 at 23:23 | Reason: Not specified

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