Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Sports & Fitness
The standard weapons in the fight against cancer - surgery, chemotherapy and
radiation - may soon be joined by something far simpler: exercise.
New research shows that regular physical activity helps reduce the risk of
recurrence of breast cancer and slows the advance of prostate cancer.
Regular cancer treatment: In a few years, exercise will probably be prescribed
regularly for cancer rehabilitation, said Melinda Irwin, an expert on cancer
and exercise at Yale University School of Medicine. Personal trainers may join
oncologists, surgeons and radiologists as members of the cancer-treatment team.
Exercise will become a "targeted therapy, similar to chemotherapy or hormonal
therapy," Irwin said. Any regular physical activity - the equivalent of a 30-minute walk, five
times a week - will do.
Advantages of exercise:Exercise offers many other advantages: It fights the
fatigue caused by cancer treatment, calms anxiety and helps survivors feel
better about themselves and their bodies.
There are 10 million cancer survivors in the United States, 22 percent of them
women who have had breast cancer, 17 percent of them men who've had prostate
cancer. Exercise makes sense for most of them - to live longer, avoid other
health problems, and just feel better.
Heart attack patients are now routinely put on exercise plans. But workouts
for cancer patients are neither prescribed by doctors nor covered by health
insurance.
Benefits of exercise: Re-searchers are working to understand how physical
activity helps fight cancer. Their findings so far suggest that exercise:
Reduces blood levels of insulin, a substance in the body that causes cells to
divide and grow more quickly. Women with high levels of insulin have a
slightly higher risk of breast cancer and a much higher rate of recurrence and
death.
Helps repair infection-fighting T-cells, restoring the immune system after it
has been damaged by chemotherapy.
Reduces levels of circulating estrogen and testosterone, two hormones linked
with breast, endometrial and prostate cancers.
The Record
Prevents weight gain and promotes weight loss, important because obesity is
associated with lower rates of survival for many forms of cancer. For women
with breast cancer, obesity at the time of diagnosis, and weight gain
afterwards, are associated with worse outcomes. The heavier and less active a
person is, the more likely her cancer will return.
Most of the scientific work so far has focused on women with breast cancer,
simply because there are so many of us. But studies have also shown exercise
has positive effects for survivors of colorectal and prostate cancers. Among
men older than 65, three hours of vigorous activity a week was associated with
a decline in death from prostate cancer.
Exercise is now considered so beneficial that cancer experts are even
encouraging patients to begin or resume exercise while treatment is under way.
Workouts might need to be scaled back in intensity and pace, but "evidence
strongly suggests that exercise is not only safe and feasible during cancer
treatment, but that it can also improve physical functioning and some aspects
of quality of life," according to the American Cancer Society.