Exercise Benefits Breast Cancer Patients on Chemo

Moderate aerobic and resistance exercise helps chemotherapy completion rates.

Two brief paragraphs titled "Exercise and Chemo" in yesterday's USA Weekend "ThinkSmart" page reported that breast-cancer on chemo benefited from both aerobic and resistance exercise additionally "bettered self-esteem, physical fitness and body composition." Nordic Walking is a twofer, with both aerobic and some upper-body resistance work at the same time, according to results of the Supervised Trial of Aerobic versus Resistance Training (START), conducted by the University of Alberta.

Women were divided into three groups: 82 who did supervised resistance exercise three times weekly, 78 who did supervised aerobic exercise three times weekly and and 82 who did no aerobic or resistance exercise (a.k.a., those getting "usual care"). Participants were surveyed for about 17 weeks (some longer, some less) but at the beginning and middle of chemotherapy and up to four weeks after completing treatment. Researchers gound that while being beneficial, "Exercise did not cause lymphedema or other adverse side effects," according to a report on the study in Science Daily.

Science Daily continued, "Unexpectedly, the study found that women in the resistance exercise group had the best chemotherapy completion rate. The percentage of women who received 85 percent or more of their recommended chemotherapy dose was 78 percent in the resistance exercise group, 74.4 percent in the aerobic exercise group and 65.9 percent in the usual care group. Although it is unclear why exercise may improve chemotherapy completion rates, the authors speculate that exercise may cause an increase in white blood cell counts, which could allow chemotherapy treatments to continue on schedule. The authors caution that this finding should be replicated before it is considered reliable."