Exercise Can Help Fight Cancer!

It has been some time since I last wrote an article. Unfortunately someone extremely close to me had been fighting a battle that millions of people around the world face every day. Cancer is a disease that can take everything from a person. I have seen firsthand how prescribed treatments take away the energy, drive, and hope. After lots of research, it seems that although exercise will not cure the disease, it can help a person keep the fire alive.

Cancer patients are often advised to exercise, and it’s easy to understand why. A cancer diagnosis is life-shattering, so patients often fall into depression, which makes recovery all the more difficult. Exercise can’t guarantee anyone a recovery from cancer, but the opposite, depressed, inactive acceptance of one’s condition is almost certain to create a downward spiral. This is the mostly psychological side of exercise and cancer. But are there also physical effects that exercise can improve cancer outcomes? Research published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute indicates that the answer is YES.

Kansas State University exercise physiologist Brad Behnke has been studying prostate-cancer tumor growth in animals that either exercise or are sedentary. As with humans, these animals divert blood flow to the muscles when exercising. The result, in Behnke’s research to date, is a 200 percent increase in tumor blood flow during exercise.

More Blood Flow? This sounds like it could be a bad thing. That is true if more blood flow “fed” tumor growth, and accelerated metastasis (spread of the disease to other organs). However, the OPPOSITE is what occurs, according to Behnke. 

“When a tumor lacks oxygen, it releases just about every growth factor you can think of, which often results in metastasis,” he explained to Runner’s World Newswire by email. “Simply speaking, the tumor says, ‘I can’t breathe here, so let’s pick up and move somewhere else in the body.’”

When a tumor is bathed in oxygen, on the other hand, its activity tends to slow. In an earlier paper, Behnke demonstrated a 90 percent decrease in “tumor hypoxia” (low oxygen) among animals that engaged in long-term, moderate-intensity treadmill exercise. “As far as I know, this is the largest reduction in tumor hypoxia of any intervention, including drugs,” he said.

Another study by a different group of researchers showed that aerobic exercise can lead to “normalization of the tissue microenvironment in human breast tumors.” In other words, exercise can help the tissue return to the way it was prior to the tumor being present. It is also possible to forestall development of a more aggressive and dangerous cancer.

A point that I would like to stress is that greater blood flow and oxygen delivery to a tumor can potentially INCREASE transport of cancer-fighting therapies to the tumor. Examples include, exercisers responding better to radiation treatments, Behnke said. Exercise increases blood flow by increasing blood pumping and pressure, and by decreasing blood vessel constriction.

Behnke’s research has focused on low- to moderate-intensity exercise such as brisk walking or slow jogging.

“There really aren’t any negative effects to moderate-intensity exercise,” he said. “Exercise improves the side effects of cancer and treatments, but what the exercise does to the tumor is likely beneficial as well.”

Don’t be afraid of exercise. In fact, use exercise as a way to fight back against a disease that can be cruel to so many. If you are new to exercise, start off simply. If you are a seasoned vet, continue or pick up the intensity. Do whatever you can in order to give your body the best chance it has. No where will you find evidence of a negative effect to implementing a workout program into your treatments. Simply make sure to have your oncologist’s permission before starting any program.