Treating cancer is not only drugs, surgery or chemotherapy: research increasingly shows that planned, regular exercise can improve patients' long-term outcomes. Bangla Tribune, drawing on a report in The New York Times, says that for some cancers regular exercise helps lower the risk of the disease returning and improves quality of life.
In an important controlled trial of colon cancer patients, those who followed a structured exercise programme with a trainer for three years had a lower risk of recurrence and a better quality of life. After eight years, 90 per cent of them were alive, against 83 per cent of patients outside the programme. Long-running observational studies of breast cancer patients also point to a link between exercise and longer survival.
A later analysis found that although the full programme cost about $3,000 a patient, it could lower overall health spending by cutting hospital admissions, emergency visits and unplanned doctor visits. Colon cancer patients are now advised to do at least 150 minutes a week of moderate to vigorous physical activity.
The report gives the example of Lee Kolker, 66, who had fatigue and brain fog after a clinical trial for metastatic kidney cancer; on the advice of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) he began exercising online under a trainer. Kimberly Barker, 68, had given up activities she loved because of pain and fatigue after treatment for bladder and uterine cancer; after 12 weeks with a trainer and practice at home, she is cycling with her husband again.
Cancer exercise researcher Kathryn Schmitz says exercise is a matter of behaviour and habit as much as biology, so programmes must fit each patient's ability, treatment and needs. Telling patients simply to exercise more does not work; many need a trainer and long-term supervision.
In the United States such programmes are still mostly confined to large cancer centres and paid for by charity or by patients themselves. UPMC is now working to bring them under health insurance, first for breast cancer patients and, if that succeeds, for all cancers from 2028. Experts caution that patients should not start strenuous exercise on their own but choose suitable exercise with a doctor or trained specialist.
Photo: Wolfgang1018 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0); an illustrative picture of exercise
Source: Bangla Tribune
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