Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the U.S. Although it isn’t the most expensive disease to treat it costs $200 billion per year in the U.S. so it has Macroeconomic impact.
A new study shows that exercise can significantly reduce the spread of cancer and lower the risk of death. Including data from over 28,000 participants with stage 1 cancers, the study found that physical activity before cancer diagnosis was associated with lower mortality and cancer progression.
Compared to those with no activity, people in the moderate to high physical activity group were 27% less likely to experience cancer progression and 47% less likely to experience death from any cause. Moderate to high was counted as 1 hour or more of recorded moderate intensity physical activity a week.
As a cancer survivor, this data has personal significance. When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013 I was habitually working out 4 days a week. The cancer was Stage 1 and has not recurred.
It’s already well-known that exercise after cancer treatment reduces the risk of recurrence from breast cancer. Women with a high risk of recurrence who met the minimum federal exercise guidelines of 2.5 hours of moderate-intensity exercise per week, before and after being diagnosed with breast cancer, had a 55% lower risk of recurrence compared to women who didn’t meet the minimum guidelines and a 68% lower risk of dying compared to women who didn’t meet the minimum guidelines. This is an important reason why I continued to work out so diligently.
It has been 2 months since my open-heart surgery. I’m working toward my pre-surgical schedule of 5 hour-long classes per week. I have been terribly weak so I do each class until I get tired. Last week, I was doing a strenuous exercise with weights and my heart rate suddenly dropped from 120 to 60 beats per minute. That was a big NOPE! so I’m being more careful.
I know recovery will be a long process so I will have to be patient.
Back to the topic…exercise is free. It has dramatic impact on all the costly chronic diseases.
Unless you pay for a gym membership. Even Planet Fitness has abandoned it’s $10/month rate.
I dropped about $130 for the exercise bike I was riding this morning. Bought it two or three years ago, because I wore out the bike I bought in 2014. In the summer I walk a two mile loop around the 'hood, as it’s more interesting, and sneakers are cheaper than bikes.
I think this is still my favorite Plant Fitness ad.
Nope, still paying $10 - of course, it really isn’t $10/month because there is a annual charge of $39. A tricky way of getting their foot in the door. And, of course, there is the black card plan; which was $25/m and allowed use (without payment) for any planet fitness in the country. I found that convenient when I was driving all around the country playing golf.
Bet you get a notice from them about the rate increase. Maybe they will do what TPC does, and just jack up the monthly rate, without saying anything? Have you noticed the TV ads for an app to put on your cell phone that figures out all the things you are subscribed to, and asks if you want to cancel any of the subscription? Seriously? People now are too lame to look at their credit card statement to see where the money is going?
Plant’s TV ads were cute tho. Better than the prime time programming these days…I have heard of people being tossed out of Planet for grunting loudly.
Nope, I balance my books every month and check my CC and bank balances at least once every few days. Also have my CC send me a text for every transaction at $1 or more. And I use Apple Pay to protect my CC#'s. But nothing is perfect; I await the notice.
I am afraid the people on this board are the exception. We must be heading to “JC” paradise, where they can rob their customers blind, and get away with it.
“The Diet, Exercise, Lifestyle and Cancer Prognosis Study (DELCaP) was a questionnaire-based study ancillary to a breast cancer intergroup phase III clinical trial (SWOG 0221; NCT00070564) led by SWOG ([33](javascript:;)). DELCaP was initiated to assess lifestyles of women with high-risk, pathologic stage I to III breast cancer at multiple times throughout survivorship, including at study enrollment (before treatment), during treatment, and after chemotherapy completion ([34,[35].”
There’s limited information on how other lifestyle influences were accounted for in the study.
When Mom was 90 she got a diagnosis of endometrial cancer. Most surgeons were reluctant to do surgery because of her age, but one at UCLA took her on when she learned that Mom was California’s old lady (past 75) marathon champ with multiple runs. Surgery was 100% successful and Mom was out hiking after four months. Then there was an ankle cancer and a kidney cancer, also both handled readily and quickly, and mom went back to long hikes on the beach weekly.
Then breast cancer at 95. The surgeons on the other three cancers all lobbied for surgery to go ahead as “she is an outstanding long term bet” and even arranged to greet her and wish her well. They stood there at the elevator landing on the floor of the surgery when she came stumping up the last of three flights of stairs, saw them across the lobby, and hollered “Hi!” at them. The three looked at each other and laughed, “Of course she took the stairs!”.
After leaving the hospital the same day as the mastectomy (“I am so bored, break me out of here!” she ordered in the recovery room), after two days rest at home she went for a hilly three mile hike, surgical drainage bag hanging from a belt loop. She lived three more vigorous years.
FWIW, the cancer/excercise paper had no mention of diet, obesity or alcohol use, all of which are cancer risk factors. It wouldn’t surprise me if those who exercise regularly have different lifestyles which could affect cancer risks.
