A recent study reveals that maintaining muscle strength and cardiovascular fitness can significantly reduce the risk of death from cancer, even in advanced stages. The research suggests that physical activity could be a powerful tool in the fight against cancer, alongside traditional treatments.
Advances in cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment have significantly reduced overall mortality rates. However, the study argues that side effects of cancer treatments, such as cardiotoxicity and muscle loss, combined with comorbidities like cardiovascular diseases, increased body mass, and lack of physical activity, contribute to mortality in cancer patients. The study highlights that maintaining physical fitness and muscle strength could be a powerful weapon in the fight against cancer.
Researchers found that cancer patients with high muscle strength and cardio fitness levels had up to 46 percent reduced chance of dying from any type of cancer compared with those with low physical fitness levels. This benefit held true even for patients with advanced-stage cancers and those battling lung or digestive cancers. In 2022, 20 million people were diagnosed with cancer worldwide, and nearly 10 million died from their disease — trends projected to increase in the coming decades. In Canada, it is estimated there were 247,100 new cancer cases and 88,100 cancer deaths in 2024, with an average of 241 people dying from cancer each day. Data from recent years have demonstrated that rates of colorectal cancer among younger individuals have been increasing with alarming rates of mortality. Physical fitness is crucial because it helps reduce inflammation, maintain a healthy body weight and muscle mass, lower the risk of Type 2 diabetes, and improve systemic circulation. To explore the potential benefits of fitness in people already diagnosed with cancer, researchers analyzed 42 studies involving 47,000 patients (with an average age of 64) across all cancer types and stages, focusing on muscle strength and cardiovascular fitness. The results showed that both muscular strength and cardio fitness had a significant reduction in the risk of all-cause mortality compared with those with low physical fitness levels. People with high levels of muscle strength and cardiorespiratory fitness were 31 percent to 46 percent less likely to die from any cause compared to those with poor muscle strength and low cardiorespiratory fitness. The risk decreased by an additional 11 percent with each unit increase in muscular strength. Similarly, each unit increase in fitness level was linked to an 18 percent lower risk of death from cancer. The combined effect of strength and fitness was associated with an eight percent to 46 percent lower risk of death from any cause in patients with advanced cancer (stages three and four) and a 19 percent to 41 percent lower risk of death from any cause among those with lung or digestive cancers. Based on these findings, Campbell suggested that cancer patients could benefit by starting at their current level and gradually increasing physical activity to stimulate their system, potentially leading to greater strength over time. So it could be as simple as taking walks outside or for muscle strength, things like using your body weight to stand from a chair, 10 times, a couple times a day. Those sorts of things really start to improve your strength as well as your fitness.
CANCER PHYSICAL FITNESS MUSCLE STRENGTH CARDIO FITNESS MORTALITY RISK TREATMENT OUTCOMES
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