The National Cancer Institute awarded investigators at Huntsman Cancer Institute a grant totaling greater than $3 million to conduct a clinical trial to see if combining creatine monohydrate supplementation and resistance exercise training helps preserve muscle in individuals who have metastatic prostate cancer. Lack of muscle mass is a serious side effect of treatment for prostate cancer. Creatine monohydrate supplementation, a naturally occurring molecule within the body, helps combat fatigue and provides more energy, leading to higher workouts. Researchers hypothesize that taking creatine monohydrate supplementation while participating in resistance training will preserve muscle mass.

To check this, 200 men with metastatic prostate cancer will participate in a 52-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trial during treatment. One group of patients will receive the creatine monohydrate supplementation and the opposite will receive a placebo. Each groups will engage in an individualized, supervised, telehealth-delivered resistance training program with the Personal Optimism With Exercise Recovery (POWER) fitness program at Huntsman Cancer Institute. Study participants and researchers is not going to know who’s getting the complement or placebo.

“Once patients start receiving treatment for his or her metastatic prostate cancer, they will now not gain muscle mass since the treatment blocks the androgen signaling, which helps to make testosterone,” says Adriana Coletta, PhD, MS, RD, member of the Cancer Control and Population Sciences Program at Huntsman Cancer Institute, assistant professor within the department of health and kinesiology on the University of Utah, and one in all the lead investigators of the clinical trial. “In case your body doesn’t make testosterone, you may’t construct muscle mass, but you may lose it. It is vital for patients to maintain the muscle mass they have already got to assist maintain independence, quality of life, and reduce other cancer treatment-related uncomfortable side effects. Also, more muscle mass can also be linked to higher survival rates.”

Coletta wishes to thank the patients who participated within the 12-week trial that provided preliminary data for this massive grant, together with members of the Salt Lake City Prostate Cancer Community Support Group, who assisted within the planning strategy of the proposed trial. She would also prefer to thank the POWER program, Huntsman Cancer Institute’s clinical trials office, and her investigative team members: Neeraj Agarwal, MD, physician-scientist at Huntsman Cancer Institute and co-lead on this trial, Benjamin Maughan, MD, PHARMD, and Manish Kohli, MD, physician-scientists at Huntsman Cancer Institute, Neli Ulrich, PhD, MS, chief scientific officer and executive director of the excellent cancer center at Huntsman Cancer Institute, and Jonathan Chipman, PhD, member of the cancer biostatistics shared resource at Huntsman Cancer Institute.

“That is an exceptional collaboration between exercise scientists and top clinical trialists at Huntsman Cancer Institute” says Ulrich. “Together this team will find necessary answers for men with prostate cancer.”

It is so exciting that we now have the support and resources to take this research to the following level. That is just the beginning of what is to return from our group to enhance quality of life for cancer patients.”

Adriana Coletta, PhD, MS, RD, member, Cancer Control and Population Sciences Program, Huntsman Cancer Institute

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute including P30 CA042014 and Huntsman Cancer Foundation.