3rd Edition: Exercise, Cancer and the Bigger Picture​
For a long time, the advice for anyone going through cancer was to rest. That has changed. Exercise is now prescribed before, during and after treatment, and last year a landmark trial showed it can improve survival in colon cancer.
The same movement that helps people through treatment also lowers the risk of cancer and other chronic disease before it ever starts. So this one is worth a read whether cancer is close to home for you right now, or you are just thinking about protecting your health as you age.
Brent Cunningham on exercise and cancer
This month I sit down with my friend and colleague Brent Cunningham, an exercise physiologist who has spent the past seven years working in exercise and cancer. Brent is about to submit his PhD on readiness to train, looking at how we adjust exercise from one day to the next for people whose energy and symptoms shift constantly through treatment. We talk about how exercise went from something patients were told to avoid to part of standard cancer care, what it is actually doing in the body during chemotherapy, the new survival evidence in colon cancer, and why staying engaged matters far more than intensity.
Association of Leisure-Time Physical Activity With Risk of 26 Types of Cancer in 1.44 Million Adults
In the largest pooled analysis to date, covering 1.44 million adults, the most active people had a lower risk of 13 of 26 cancers compared with the least active. The strongest signals included a roughly 20 per cent lower risk across seven cancer types, with a 10 to 20 per cent lower risk for multiple myeloma among others. For most cancers this held even after accounting for body weight, suggesting the effect runs through more than weight alone.
Stat 1: 1.44m, adults pooled across 12 long-term studies
Stat 2: 13 of 26, cancers showed lower risk in the most active people
Stat 3: ~20%, lower risk across seven cancer types.
The same activity is also associated with lower risk of heart disease and earlier death from any cause. This is association rather than a guarantee, but the direction is consistent and the message is simple: regular movement protects more than one system at once.
Moore et al., 2016, JAMA Internal Medicine.
Note: Observational data, so association rather than causation.
Understanding Risk
This month’s cancer evidence comes back to one idea: most of what we are talking about is association, not a guarantee. That is exactly what this webinar unpacks. I walk through what actually moves your dementia risk, what doesn’t, and how to read risk honestly without panic or complacency. It is a useful companion to the exercise and cancer content above.
Exercise Insight
The most striking thing Brent said was how little it takes to matter. Going from nothing to something is where the biggest health gains are, not from training hard or perfectly. He put it another way that stuck with me: fit the exercise to the person, not the person to the exercise. Through cancer treatment that means working with how you feel on the day. In everyday life it means choosing movement you can actually repeat. The lever that matters most is not intensity, it is staying engaged across months and years.
