Does Exercise Help Cancer Patients?

Occasionally, we invite experts to write about the subject they know best. The following main content was written by:

Shawn Dassie, MS, CSCS, USAW, NASM-PES
Director of Fitness and Sports Performance 360 Health Club

Over the past decade, research on the benefits of exercise for people diagnosed and treated for many types of cancer has been shown to dramatically contrast the old way of thinking, when cancer patients were advised to take it easy.

Among the benefits of exercise for cancer patients that researchers have found:

• Keeping fit protects the heart by helping mitigate the heart-damaging effects of some forms of chemotherapy. 
• Reduced fatigue resulting from improved cardio-pulmonary fitness, as well as muscular strength. 
• Exercise helps counteract the cycle of fatigue and inactivity which leads to increased muscle-wasting that results in even further fatigue in many cancer patients.
• Improved quality of life due to a reduction in cancer-related depression, anxiety, sleeplessness and stress.
• Exercise enhances overall health by improving balance, controlling weight and protecting against osteoporosis and heart disease.
• Reduced nausea due to redistribution of blood flow away from the abdomen and toward the legs, or from an increase in resting metabolism.

Experts also agree that people with cancer — whether or not they exercised before their diagnosis — should try to stay active throughout their treatment. Family caregivers can help out by joining in the exercise program and by encouraging their loved one to be as independent as possible in daily activities.

The American Cancer Society advises:

• Before beginning any exercise program, discuss it with your doctor.
• Start slowly, especially if you were sedentary before.
• Build up, even if it’s only doing a few minutes of activity a day.
• Include both aerobic and strengthening exercises.
• Keep up household chores, if possible, such as gardening and washing the car.
• Remember to begin each day’s activity with warm-ups (shoulder shrugs, knee lifts).
• Ease up if your heart rate is very rapid, if you’re out of breath or if the activity causes severe pain.