We all know that exercise is an important part of a healthy lifestyle. However, according to a new study, regularly working out can significantly benefit cancer patients.
The study found that exercise reduced the risk of death for cancer patients by a third and that it was even more effective than drugs at stopping the disease from returning.
“We now have definitive evidence that exercise is not just an intervention for quality of life and fitness. This is an intervention that improves survival and should be standard of care,” Christopher Booth, MD, an author of the paper and a professor of oncology at Queen’s University in Canada, told The New York Times.
The study, which was published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, followed nearly 900 patients with stage II and stage III colon cancer from 2009 to 2023. One group of patients worked with a personal trainer who helped them create and sustain a fitness regimen over the course of three years. Most participants opted for a brisk walk of 45 minutes to an hour, four times a week. The other group received only health education.
The people in the exercise group had a 28 percent lower risk of developing new or recurring cancer than the other patients after five years. After eight years, they had a 37 percent lower risk of dying. “Results support longer overall survival in the exercise group than in the health-education group,” the study reports.
But what’s more stunning is that these results rival those of cancer-fighting drugs. “It’s the same magnitude of benefit of many drugs that get approved for this kind of magnitude of benefit…Drugs get approved for less than that, and they’re expensive and they’re toxic.” Julie Gralow, MD, the chief medical officer of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, told the Guardian.
In about 30 percent of colon cancer cases, the cancer returns, but the study has proven that exercise could be an extremely powerful tool to help patients live longer, healthier lives, and it may transform how oncologists approach cancer recurrence. Dr. Gralow said most doctors used to advise patients to take it easy, but that may no longer be the case.
“When I started three decades ago it was still the era where we’d be gentle and say, don’t overdo yourself when you’re on chemo. We’ve reversed that,” she said. “I would say [exercise] is better than a drug.”
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