Proof that exercise fights cancer has now been proven after a study from Western Australian researchers from Edith Cowan University (ECU) studied the effects of exercise on cancer patients.
ECU researchers studies a group of obese prostate cancer patients who were placed onto a 12 week exercise program with blood samples taken before and after the program.
After the 12 week program concluded researchers found that the patients contained high levels of myokines, a cancer fighting protein in the blood samples taken after the program.
Study supervisor Professor Robert Newton explains “When we took their pre-exercise blood and their post-exercise blood and placed it over living prostate cancer cells, we saw a significant suppression of the growth of those cells from the post-training blood,”
“These men have high disease burden, extensive treatment side-effects and are very unwell, but they still can produce anti-cancer medicine from within“.
“That’s quite substantial indicating chronic exercise creates a cancer suppressive environment in the body.”
ECU will now move onto the next stage of the study where they will place advance stage prostate cancer patients on a 6 month exercise program.
This study goes against previous advice for cancer patients to rest up instead showing that staying physically active is likely to bring about more positive outcomes.
