Study: Exercise increases cancer survival rates

Of course, you have to be well enough to exercise.

My mom was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer 11 years ago, at 59. She wasn't super into fitness when I was growing up (no time with 4 kids to raise). But ~5 years after her diagnosis, still doing regular treatments and on loads of medication, she picked up running as a hobby.

She is absolutely incredible and I'm so proud of her. But she would be the first to tell you about all of the friends she made who died of cancer, including many much younger and fitter women, and I know this is obvious but I'll say it: it wasn't because they didn't exercise, it's because they didn't respond well to treatment. She had to stop going to her support groups because literally everyone she met there had died[1]. She is so fortunate that she's responded well, enough that she was afforded the time to emerge from the shock and depression and realize that she had a lot of life left. We are so lucky that she's here with us and well enough to develop new hobbies, etc.

I do think the sort of information in the study is interesting on a population scale. On an individual level the fact is that some people will respond to treatment and others won't. The ones who do may just feel well enough to start an exercise program. If they can, it may well improve the quality of their life, and may extend your time with them, and that's an amazing gift.

I'm not sure why I felt compelled to share my anecdote. Maybe just to share what the messy human side can look like.

[1] I should note that her support group was specifically for people with a terminal diagnosis. People in any other type of breast cancer support group won't have this experience.

Massively editorialized title. The actual title is “Structured Exercise after Adjuvant Chemotherapy for Colon Cancer” which is much more narrow than the current title which implies exercise increases all cancer survival rates (it might but that’s not what this study shows).

Horizontal studies are so hard. There is so much modern medicine can't always incorporate into studies that are confounders.

For example the gut brain connection is not well understood. Links between autoimmune responses to cancer can cause all kinds of problems that can seem unrelated(an example is myotonia which appeared in one of my relatives a full year before their breast cancer diagnosis and went away after treatment). I recently read in the times an article about the discovery of another circulatory system apart from the one we have; apparently acupuncture may get a more scientific and serious look into because it interacts with that system. There is also the business of how psychiatry schools still are not teaching how to not treat the brain as if it's an isolated organ, a wholisiti approach is being only now taught in all but a handful of schools(I think this was in the economist).

Does this end up filtering out those who cannot maintain regular exercise from the exercise group? Otherwise isn't this just filtering for the healthier subjects?

I wonder (no access to full text here) how they control for patients no longer able to do the exercise? Do those remain in the cohort, or are they removed (would bias the end result, so unlikely to get past review or into NEJM)? Or is that why they screened so long and so hard as selection criteria are super rigorous?

I have never seen a study saying exercise is bad for you.

Fork found in kitchen

In my opinion, anything that lowers blood glucose is going to help cancer survival rates[1].

My father died of pancreatic cancer and both me and my sister-in-law who was a oncology nurse were frustrated with them, wanting to keep him eating those gross protein shakes that were filled with sugar.

[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12889-024-19545-z

Another feather in the cap of the undisputed champion of health studies.

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What are they gonna figure it next - vegetables are good for you too ?!?