Your internal organs and tissues move as you breath and as your bowels and bladder fill and empty. If you are getting radiation therapy to one of these moving parts, ensuring accurate targeting is essential as radiation therapy is a very precise treatment that is most effective when you can be certain that you are hitting the spot you want to treat throughout the treatment.
A new study has reported that by consuming probiotics during radiation therapy for cancers of the pelvis (i.e. prostate, cervix, rectum) you can make the targeting of your tumor more predictable.
Previous studies have shown that taking probiotics before and during radiation therapy for cancers of the pelvis significantly reduces side effects of radiation therapy (i.e. diarrhea).
We don’t yet know which species of probiotic organisms are the best and what dose is the most effective for each indication, therefore I often recommend consuming probiotic foods or taking a probiotic supplement that contains billions of colony forming units (CFUs) of a mixture of various species of organisms.
Get an integrative oncology consultation to help you make more informed decisions on your use of these healthful organisms and other natural foods and products.
