Exercise helps fight cancer
Regular activity has helped cancer survivors regain energy and hope
By Lindy Washburn
- McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
Updated: 07/08/08 8:05 AM
-
- Any regular physical activity — the equivalent of a 30-minute walk, five times a week — fights the fatigue caused by cancer treatment, calms anxiety and helps survivors feel better about themselves.
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.
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.
“Don’t think you have to work up a sweat or train for a marathon to benefit,” Irwin said.
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.
“We’re where cardiac rehab was 20 years ago,” Irwin said.
‘Out of that slump’
Beth Wajts of Hillsdale joined the Ridgewood YMCA’s free “Living Healthy, Living Strong” class in January after her second surgery for breast cancer, followed by chemotherapy and radiation.
“I cannot believe the way I walked in, and the way I walked out,” she said.
One of her classmates, Joyce Murray of Hawthorne, had three surgeries in an eight-week period last summer, then chemotherapy with many complications. No amount of sleep could cure her fatigue, she said.
After she started the twice-weekly program of resistance training and cardiac fitness, “I was surprised at the quick rebound,” she said. “I really feel better.”
Angelo Chiusano, 81, joined after 43 radiation treatments for prostate cancer and surgery for an aortic aneurysm. Thanks to the camaraderie in the weight room, “I’ve gained a new family,” the Oakland resident said. “It’s made such a difference in my feelings.”
Researchers 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. Even with medication to suppress estrogen production, some estrogen is stored in fat cells. Exercise may help by converting fat to muscle.
• 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 afterward, are associated with worse outcomes. The heavier and less active a person is, the more likely her cancer will return.
Exercise is now considered so beneficial that cancer experts are even encouraging patients to begin or resume exercise while treatment is under way.
Lockey Maissoneuve, a 41-year-old personal trainer, went through two mastectomies and chemotherapy two years ago. She is now is training for a triathlon.
“If you’re in treatment, the first week or two you try to do anything, you need to take a nap,” she said. “If there’s a day you want to exercise, do it.”
Wearing a wig was uncomfortably hot in the gym, so she switched to a kerchief. With her immunity reduced by chemo, she wiped down the equipment before she used it. She is now certified to work with cancer patients.
Extra energy
Rita Scoccola, 43, of Wyckoff resumed exercising a year after she had a double mastectomy in 2000. She works out weekly with a trainer and is in the best shape of her life.
“There’s always an awareness” of the ways her body has changed as a result of the surgery and reconstruction, Scoccola said, but her workouts, combined with healthful eating, have given her lots of energy.
Becoming active again, said Maissoneuve, helped her “realize that cancer is not a jail sentence. It’s a big bump in the road. But you can find your new normal, and have a great life.”
