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.
I used to believe exercise was for people who were "into fitness". I have come to realise it's for everyone, at the level of their capacity.
Exercise should be thought of like brushing teeth and other forms of basic self-care. You don't do it because you're interested. You do it because you were born into a body that needs it.
Thank you for sharing. I have a similar experience with my father who was diagnosed a few years older than your mother. Chemo made it really difficult to do anything for a day or two after. Winters made it worse. I'm not sure how much exercise he could even participate in with a colostomy.
individual cases have so many differences. Cancer is a nightmare
11 years is a incredible. All the best to you and your family
Responding well to the treatment = basically the cancer cells haven't picked up any of the worst gene mutations that we don't have an effective countermeasurement against. So it's all about luck. And fate, if you believe fate is just a manifestation of luck. I wish the best will still keep coming to her.
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).
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).
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?
They're definitely is a point of diminishing returns and a point where it can have negative outcomes but that's on the very extreme end. I also saw recently that there's a correlation between ultra marathons and colon cancer
It's common for people that do endurance sports to actually eat pretty low quality food in order to consume enough carbs. When I'm on bike trips I will pretty much eat just about anything including candy and things like maltodextrin in water just to keep myself going when I normally wouldn't eat these things. It's definitely not good for your gut. But overall is it better than being sedentary? Yes definitely
I personally believe that exercise is overwhelmingly beneficial and exercise every day, but there is evidence that athletes have slightly increased risk of ALS (though this may be related to something other than exercise itself, eg maybe the fields on which sports teams play have harmful chemicals, higher head injury rates, etc)
Like most things, there’s a U-shaped curve to the benefits and downsides of exercise.
Exercise creates a lot of oxidative stress, and after a while or too much exercise your body can’t handle the oxidative stress and that’s where things start going wrong.
For a long time people with multiple sclerosis were discouraged from exercising. It wasn't until like the 1990s that exercise was recommended. All to say science is ever-evolving.
In this forum? Every american is going to say that exercise destroys your joints and would take Ozempic for the rest of their life rather than run a 5K around their block.
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.
There are some really good studies showing this. Dr. Walter Longo has been doing a study at USC for breast cancer patients. While his protocol is based on fasting, he believes a big reason for its success is the lower glucose.
Conclusions: This review suggests a possible association between high dietary sugar intake and increased prostate cancer risk, especially from added sugars and sugar-sweetened beverages. However, inconsistent findings and methodological limitations highlight the need for robust, prospective studies with standardized assessments to understand this relationship better.
"If you have pre-diabetes or diabetes, here’s another reason to try to get your blood sugar under control: if you get prostate cancer, you are more likely to die from it."
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.
I used to believe exercise was for people who were "into fitness". I have come to realise it's for everyone, at the level of their capacity.
Exercise should be thought of like brushing teeth and other forms of basic self-care. You don't do it because you're interested. You do it because you were born into a body that needs it.
Thank you for sharing. I have a similar experience with my father who was diagnosed a few years older than your mother. Chemo made it really difficult to do anything for a day or two after. Winters made it worse. I'm not sure how much exercise he could even participate in with a colostomy.
individual cases have so many differences. Cancer is a nightmare
11 years is a incredible. All the best to you and your family
Responding well to the treatment = basically the cancer cells haven't picked up any of the worst gene mutations that we don't have an effective countermeasurement against. So it's all about luck. And fate, if you believe fate is just a manifestation of luck. I wish the best will still keep coming to her.
They need to separate all these studies by age group. Age is the biggest risk factor in cancer.
Nothing really works if you are old.
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).
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).
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.
They're definitely is a point of diminishing returns and a point where it can have negative outcomes but that's on the very extreme end. I also saw recently that there's a correlation between ultra marathons and colon cancer
It's common for people that do endurance sports to actually eat pretty low quality food in order to consume enough carbs. When I'm on bike trips I will pretty much eat just about anything including candy and things like maltodextrin in water just to keep myself going when I normally wouldn't eat these things. It's definitely not good for your gut. But overall is it better than being sedentary? Yes definitely
Also, sometimes marathon/ultra people will skimp on sleep and rest, which will have negative outcomes.
That definitely is not ideal but if you are just doing it very short term during an event it's probably fine
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10151186/
I personally believe that exercise is overwhelmingly beneficial and exercise every day, but there is evidence that athletes have slightly increased risk of ALS (though this may be related to something other than exercise itself, eg maybe the fields on which sports teams play have harmful chemicals, higher head injury rates, etc)
Didn't they link it to pesticide use at golf courses ?
Like most things, there’s a U-shaped curve to the benefits and downsides of exercise.
Exercise creates a lot of oxidative stress, and after a while or too much exercise your body can’t handle the oxidative stress and that’s where things start going wrong.
For a long time people with multiple sclerosis were discouraged from exercising. It wasn't until like the 1990s that exercise was recommended. All to say science is ever-evolving.
In this forum? Every american is going to say that exercise destroys your joints and would take Ozempic for the rest of their life rather than run a 5K around their block.
Fork found in kitchen
What are they gonna figure it next - vegetables are good for you too ?!?
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
There are some really good studies showing this. Dr. Walter Longo has been doing a study at USC for breast cancer patients. While his protocol is based on fasting, he believes a big reason for its success is the lower glucose.
I think you are right. Fasting and low sugar diets should also help.
No. Glucose has nothing to do with prostate cancer.
What?
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7523/5/3/31
(2025)
Conclusions: This review suggests a possible association between high dietary sugar intake and increased prostate cancer risk, especially from added sugars and sugar-sweetened beverages. However, inconsistent findings and methodological limitations highlight the need for robust, prospective studies with standardized assessments to understand this relationship better.
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/articles/2017/12/high-b...
"If you have pre-diabetes or diabetes, here’s another reason to try to get your blood sugar under control: if you get prostate cancer, you are more likely to die from it."
Another feather in the cap of the undisputed champion of health studies.
If the results of regular exercise could be put in a pill, it'd be the most amazing miracle pill of all time.