[ad_1]
Exercise could improve the life expectancy of adults who survive cancer during their childhood, even if the activity begins years after the end of treatment, according to a new inspiring study.
But the study also finds that many survivors rarely, if ever, move.
In one of the most moving success stories of modern medicine, many childhood cancers are now treatable, including types that would have been fatal.
But there may be costs associated with this progress. Some of the standard treatments for cancer, such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, are known to weaken the heart or increase the risk of subsequent tumors, including in children.
As a result, young people who survive cancer tend to die, on average, about 10 years earlier than unaffected adults of the same age, epidemiological studies show. In some cases, they die from recurrences of their original malignancies, but more often from early heart disease or new cancers.
Exercise is of course known to reduce the risk that someone develops or dies from heart disease. It can also reduce the incidence of a number of types of cancer.
But we do not know if physical activity can also affect and extend the life of people who have survived childhood cancer.
Thus, for the new study, published this month in JAMA Oncology, researchers at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, St. Jude Hospital for Children's Research in Memphis, and the University of New York. Other institutions used the Childhood Cancer Survivorship study.
It is an extensive database on the health of adults in the United States and Canada who have at least five years of diagnosis of any type of cancer detected before they have reached the 39, 21 years old. Medical tests and questionnaires and then, in subsequent years, repeat the tests from time to time.
Now researchers have botched the database to find participants who had answered a specific question about their current physical activity patterns. This question asked them if and how often they exercised last week at an intensity that made them "sweat or breathe hard (for example, jogging, basketball, etc.)?
The researchers found themselves with answers and information on the health of 15,540 men and women. In addition, more than 5,600 of these participants answered a follow-up question eight years later on their current exercise routines.
The researchers divided these participants into groups, according to which, at the beginning of the study, they said that they often, occasionally, or almost no training at all.
The researchers also looked at the deaths, crossing the data from the national registry of deaths, to see if in the 10 or 15 years following the start of the study, there were some who died.
And, although most men and women were still relatively young at that time – few had passed the age of 50 – more than 1,000 had died. One hundred of these deaths were the result of recurrences of childhood infant cancers. But most of the rest were the result of other health problems, especially heart disease.
However, exercise was associated with differences with this trajectory. Deaths were more common among adults who said they rarely exercised. Nearly 12% of them died during the follow-up period. But only about 7 percent of the men and women who have often exercised died. (The researchers controlled factors such as the body mass index and types of cancer treatments that people had completed.)
Based on these numbers, scientists have determined that the ideal area for exercise, in terms of improving longevity in cancer survivors during their childhood, appears to be about an hour of brisk walking almost every day.
The researchers found that the probabilities were particularly encouraging for people who rarely exercised but who increased their workouts over the years. Their risk of premature death was about 40 percent lower than that of participants who had been and remained physically inactive.
Inactive people were in the majority, however, accounting for about 70% of the total.
"The exercise certainly seems beneficial" for people who have survived childhood cancer, said Lee Jones, chief of the oncology department at Memorial Sloan Kettering, who oversaw the study, possibly to be because it can both strengthen hearts and reduce new cancer.
But these possibilities are speculative. This study did not examine how exercise can improve longevity. He is also observational and can not prove that exercise has actually made survivors of childhood cancer live longer, but only that there was an association between more exercise and a longer life.
It is also possible, Jones said, that the healthiest people exercise more than those who were in worse condition and that their sturdy health increases their lifespan, not exercise.
He and his colleagues are in the midst of experiences with cancer survivors that they hope better bring out the role of exercise.
But for now, he said, if you or a loved one had cancer, "I highly recommend you talk with your doctor about exercise."
Source link
