Exercise can improve survival in prostate cancer patients
US researchers have found that regular vigorous exercise can improve survival of patients who are at the early stages of prostate cancer.
Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco studied a group of men with low-risk prostate cancer who were undergoing “watchful waiting” in which doctors follow patients to see if their tumors became more threatening.
Researchers recorded the participants' exercise habits and took samples of normal prostate tissue from the patients to study their genes.
Men who were engaged in vigorous exercise such as jogging, tennis or swimming for at least three hours a week had differences in 184 genes including those known to suppress tumor growth.
Genes more highly expressed in men who did vigorous exercise included well-known tumor-suppressor genes associated with breast cancer, BRCA1 and BRCA2, June Chan and colleagues found.
The physically active men also had higher expression of genes involved in DNA repair, says the report presented at a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in San Francisco.
“There are many reasons to exercise,” said June Chan. “Here's yet another great reason to exercise and it may offer a prostate cancer-specific benefit.”
Researchers are planning to confirm their findings in a larger study on more men undergoing “watchful waiting” and also prostate cancer patients who have a recurrence of the disease.
Source: presstv.com
