4 minute read
Dr. Muraida
For A Healthy Life P X
Barry W. Ramo, MD, FACC
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• Director New Heart Fitness and Health • Cardiologist, New Mexico Heart Institute/Lovelace Medical Group
A65-year-old woman who had been treated for breast cancer four years previously and is now cancer free came to New Heart where I am the director. Prior to her cancer treatment, she enjoyed walking regularly and went to a weekly yoga class. All that stopped when she was diagnosed with cancer. Since that time, she gained 16 pounds and “just has no energy”. She had never been told about the powerful benefits that a vigorous exercise program could provide cancer patients.
Even though exercise is routinely prescribed for a wide variety of illnesses especially in my field of cardiology, Exercise is not routinely given the emphasis that it should for people with cancer. Accumulating evidence is demonstrating that exercise may prevent cancer, helps control disease progression, interacts positively with anti-cancer therapies, and improves physical functioning and psychosocial outcomes
Cancer treatments have devastating effects on a person’s cardiovascular fitness. The fitness decline after cancer therapy is equivalent to what a patient without cancer can be expected to lose over ten years. Researchers at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center reported that patients with breast cancer’s fitness level fell as though they had aged 10 years after only 12 weeks of therapy. With a moderate exercise
program, much of that loss could be recovered compared to women who remained sedentary.
Multiple US and international organizations have published exercise recommendations for patients living with cancer and beyond cancer. Based upon that research and many other studies, in 2018, the Australian Oncology Society recommended that exercise be an integral part of cancer care. That same year, a roundtable of the American College of Sports Medicine and 17 other cancer related organizations published evidence-based guidelines to encourage medical professionals to prescribe exercise for their cancer patients.
An analysis of 61 clinical trials of women with all stages of breast cancer, found those who underwent an exercise program during treatment had significantly improved quality of life, fitness, energy, and strength, as well as significantly less anxiety, depression, and lower body mass index and waist circumference compared with those who did not exercise. Similar benefits have been seen in studies of patients with a wide range of other malignancies,
Importantly, new research strongly suggests a direct biologic effect on the cancer itself. There is substantial evidence suggesting exercise is associated with improved survival in patients with breast, colon, and prostate cancer. A report from University of California San Francisco found that women with breast cancer who participated in moderate intensity exercise had a 64% lower risk for death compared to inactive women. People with colon cancer had a 47% improvement in disease free survival compared to inactive patients. At New Heart, patients at various stages of cancer treatment, enroll in an aerobic and strength training program. The sessions are one hour and are supervised by an exercise specialist who has been trained specially to help patients with cancer. Patients come 2 or 3 times a week for one hour and are encouraged to exercise when they are not at New Heart. At the end of the 36-session program, patients are given an exercise program they can take to their local gym or stay at New Heart. The results have been very gratifying with patients regaining strength, vigor and selfconfidence knowing that exercise is actually medicine that helps fight their cancer.
The program also includes weight management because for breast cancer the increases in estrogen driven by obesity increases the risk of disease recurrences and increased mortality.
It is easy to forget that after a patient survives cancer; their risk is cardiovascular disease. In fact, breast cancer patients are more
likely to die from heart disease than their cancer. So, at New Heart we tell patients that part of their survivorship is controlling risk factors like hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes.
If we could turn the benefits of exercise into a pill it would be demanded by patients, prescribed by every cancer specialist and subsidized by government. It would be seen as a major breakthrough in cancer. So, if you have cancer or know someone who has it. The exercise pill is worth swallowing.
Exercise for Cancer at New heart
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