“Quite impressive”
The exercise group, which participated in supervised workouts for the initial six months of the three-year study, reported greater physical activity overall. By the study’s conclusion, this group was averaging more than 20 MET hours per week, whereas the education group logged about 15 MET hours weekly. Additionally, those in the exercise group showed better results in cardiorespiratory fitness and overall physical functioning.
Meanwhile, the control group, thanks to health education, also increased their activity levels during the trial, starting from around 10 MET hours per week. The researchers noted that these results “suggest an even more significant impact of exercise on cancer outcomes compared to a completely sedentary control group.”
At this point, we don’t fully understand how exercise helps combat cancer, but it aligns with various observational studies that associate physical activity with improved results for cancer patients. Researchers propose several theories, suggesting that exercise may lead to “increased fluid shear stress, enhanced immune response, lower inflammation, better insulin sensitivity, and changes in the microenvironment of key metastasis sites,” according to the authors.
The study found that exercise helped prevent both local recurrence and distant colon cancer, while also warding off new cases of cancers such as breast, prostate, and colorectal.
Experts from outside the study praised the findings. Marco Gerlinger, a gastrointestinal cancer specialist at Queen Mary University of London, commented, “This suggests that exercise can have a comparably potent effect as previously demonstrated for chemotherapy, which is really quite remarkable.” He added, “Patients often ask what they can do to minimize the chance of their cancer returning. Oncologists now have a strong, evidence-based recommendation to provide.”
David Sebag-Montefiore, a clinical oncologist at the University of Leeds, expressed enthusiasm about the study after his three decades in bowel cancer research. He described it as an exciting step forward in improving cure rates, noting that structured moderate-intensity exercise provides benefits without the typical side effects of other treatments.
