Exercise May Be “Better Than a Drug” In Cancer Recovery

Study discovers that exercise is an effective way to maintain cancer recovery

It’s a well-established fact that one of the best things you can do for your body is to exercise. Those who perform two to four times above the recommended amount of moderate physical activity, for instance, show a 26% to 31% lower all-cause mortality, and a 28% to 38% lower risk of cardiovascular disease mortality. Exercise has also been proven to alleviate stress and anxiety, both of which frequently cause or contribute to cognitive impairment. A new trial has revealed yet another benefit of exercise: it can reduce the risk of cancer patients dying by a third.

Up until now, there has been little evidence of how exercise can impact cancer patients following their diagnoses, despite doctors having long recommended physical activity to lower the risk of developing such life-threatening illnesses. This recent trial, however, reveals that implementing a structured exercise routine during and after treatment can be “better than a drug” at reducing the possibility of dying or relapse. According to the American Society for Clinical Oncology’s (Asco) Chief Medical Officer Dr. Julie Gralow, who was not involved in the study, these groundbreaking findings will lead to a “major shift in understanding the importance of encouraging physical activity during and after treatment.”

The trial served as the first of its kind, tracking 889 patients diagnosed with colon cancer across the U.S., UK, Australia, France, Canada, and Israel between 2009 and 2023. Half of these patients were randomly assigned to participate in an exercise program, whereas the rest received health education materials that promoted physical activity and proper nutrition. The “exercise prescription” also consisted of working closely with a personal trainer on activities such as swimming, circuit training, running, and walking, all in an effort to increase activity levels by 10 “metabolic equivalent task hours” per week.

“What [that] translated to for most people is going on a brisk walk 45 minutes a day, four days per week,” Christopher Booth, a medical oncologist at Queen’s University in Canada and the study’s lead author, told NBC News.

The exercise program lasted for a total of three years, with the first year involving coaching sessions twice a month and, later, only once a month. After five years, 80% of those regularly exercising remained cancer-free, compared with 74% in the control group. In other words, patients who exercised had a 28% lower risk of recurrent or new cancers. After eight years, those same patients also had a 37% lower risk of dying.

“For every 14 patients who went on the exercise program, exercise prevented one person from dying,” Booth told the Times. “Notably, this difference in survival was not driven by difference in cardiovascular deaths, but by a reduction in the risk of death from colon cancer.”

Although the study focused specifically on colon cancer, Booth emphasized that fewer patients in the exercise group developed breast cancer, suggesting that physical activity can impact other types of cancer as well.

“The findings suggest that oncologists should consider recommending a structured exercise program after surgery to improve people’s chances of survival,” Charles Swanton, the chief clinician of Cancer Research UK, told the Guardian. “For an intervention that isn’t a drug, exercise offers remarkable benefits for patients.”

The findings were originally presented on June 1 at Asco’s annual meeting in Chicago, during a session titled “As Good as a Drug.”

“I would have retitled it ‘Better Than a Drug,’” Gralow said, “because you don’t have all the side effects.”