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Benefits of Exercise in Your Fight Against Cancer
When you’ve been given a cancer diagnosis, the last thing you often feel like doing is exercising. Cancer treatment can also sap your energy. Chemotherapy, in particular, causes patients to feel run down—rather than feeling like running around the block. Exercise, however, can help ease the stress of going through cancer. The body fat reduction you get as a result of exercise can even lower your risk of recurrence of some types of cancer.
Each stage of the cancer journey can produce intense amounts of stress. When your doctor first gives you a cancer diagnosis and every time you wait to receive a test result, the stress hormones adrenalin and cortisol course through your system. Your body is preparing a fight-or-flight response, but the enemy lies unseen inside your body. When adrenalin and cortisol surge, your body wants to move, and the action of moving causes your stress hormones to recede. Exercise also stimulates the body’s production of endorphins, which naturally help relieve pain and elevate your mood.
Some people find rhythmic and repetitive exercises such as jogging or using an elliptical machine to be especially relaxing. Harvard Medical School’s newsletter calls this type of exercise “muscular meditation.” Some patients whose cancers involve the lungs, such as pleural mesothelioma and lung cancer patients, may find intense exercises too taxing during treatment. These patients can still benefit from a walking program or Tai Chi, with its slow, graceful movements.
Some cancer patients prefer the same kinds of sports they would use if they were being physically attacked. When they engage in sports like martial arts or kickboxing, they envision themselves beating cancer into submission. As patients become physically stronger, they feel stronger to fight against cancer as well.
While exercise isn’t a cure, it can help prevent a recurrence of some types of cancer. Body fat produces the female hormone estrogen, which often plays a role in developing breast cancer. Exercise causes people to lose body fat and produce less estrogen. One medical journal, Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention, cites recent studies that show a link between high body mass index and other types of cancers, too. Besides breast cancer, obesity is associated with a heightened risk of ovarian, endometrial, colorectal, thyroid, renal, gall bladder, pancreatic, and esophageal cancers. In addition, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, leukemia and adenocarcinoma all have a correlation with obesity.
David Haas 2011