[Jackie07]

A 13-year Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma survivor, Mother's motto is: "In order to stay alive, a person has to 'move'".

A new study of Chinese cancer patients also suggests exercise adds advantage to survival:

Cancer Prev Res (Phila). 2011 Jul 27. [Epub ahead of print]
Exercise after diagnosis of breast cancer in association with survival.

Chen X, Lu W, Zheng W, Gu K, Matthews CE, Chen Z, Zheng Y, Shu XO.
Source

1Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Abstract

It has been suggested that exercise following breast cancer diagnosis is inversely associated with mortality. However, controversy exists regarding the causality of such associations.

We evaluated associations of exercise after breast cancer diagnosis with total mortality and recurrence/disease-specific mortality after accounting for conditions that restrict exercise participation. The analysis included 4826 women with stage I-III breast cancer identified 6 months after diagnosis through the population-based Shanghai Cancer Registry and recruited into the study between 2002 and 2006.

Exercise was assessed approximately 6, 18, and 36 months post-diagnosis and metabolic equivalent (MET) scores were derived. Information on medical history, cancer diagnosis, treatments, quality of life (QOL), anthropometrics, and lifestyles were obtained by in-person interviews at 6 months post-diagnosis. Medical charts were abstracted to verify clinical information.

During the median follow-up of 4.3 years, 436 deaths and 450 recurrences/cancer-related deaths were documented. After adjustment for QOL, clinical prognostic factors, and other covariates, exercise during first 36 months post-diagnosis was inversely associated with total mortality and recurrence/disease-specific mortality with hazard ratios of 0.70 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.56-0.88) and 0.60 (95% CI: 0.47-0.76), respectively. Significant dose-response relationships between total and recurrence/disease-specific mortality rates and exercise duration and MET scores were observed (all Ptrend<0.05).

The exercise-mortality associations were not modified by menopausal status, comorbidity, QOL, or body size assessed approximately 6 months post-diagnosis. An interaction between disease stage and hormone receptor status and total mortality was noted.

Our study suggests that exercise after breast cancer diagnosis may improve overall and disease-free survival.