Research has long supported the role of vigorous exercise (such as running) in health, disease prevention and quality of life, but a new study goes much further, showing that even people with advanced colon cancer can significantly extend their lives with a structured exercise program.
On Sunday, The New England Journal of Medicine published the results of a study, called the CO.21 Challenge, co-chaired by oncologist and Queen’s University professor Christopher Booth of Kingston, Ont., and Kerry Courneya of the University of Alberta. The study, which began almost two decades ago, in 2009, included 889 patients with Stage 3 or high-risk Stage 2 colon cancer who had had both surgery and chemotherapy.
Survival rates significantly higher with exercise
Patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups: those who received (and followed) a structured exercise program under the guidance of a trainer for a three-year period, and those who were given educational materials about exercise and nutrition. Those who exercised had a significantly higher overall survival and disease-free survival rate than those who only received information, achieving a 37-per-cent lower risk of death and a 28-per-cent lower risk of recurrence of their cancer, or development of other cancers–astonishingly good results.
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The Globe and Mail quoted Booth as saying the results demonstrate that exercise can now be considered a significant treatment with potential for extending life, rather than simply an intervention to improve quality of life–even implying that these results are better than those associated with some cancer drugs (while he acknowledged that participants had also benefited from surgery and chemotherapy).
He added that giving patients information on how exercise can benefit them is not enough; they must be prescribed a routine, and the aid of an exercise therapist as part of their health care team, who would be there to support patients as they take their exercise “medicine.”
The report did not say whether any of the participants were already regular exercisers.
The results echo what popular health gurus, such as Canadian Outlive author Peter Attia, have long asserted: that “exercise might be the most potent ‘drug’ we have for extending the quality and perhaps quantity of our years of life”–though, granted, he is talking about disease prevention and “healthspan,” rather than situations where disease is already present.
