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The Magic Pill

I have found it! This simple prescription is proven to help you:

  • lose weight,
  • treat depression as effectively as Zoloft,
  • sleep sounder,
  • live longer,
  • improve memory and cognition,
  • prevent heart disease, lower cholesterol and blood pressure,
  • prevent and manage diabetes,
  • prevent and fight cancer as well as chemotherapy,
  • improve bone strength and,
  • put the spark back in your love life!!

Sounds too good to be true? It’s not! It’s also not a pill, capsule, power shake or bar, injection or nutraceutical. It is exercise and it is probably the single best thing you can do for your health besides eating well.

The above-mentioned benefits are scientifically proven effects of regular exercise, but did you know that exercise also reduces death from cancer?

From the Denver Naturopathic Clinic Newsletter November 5, 2009:

“Back in August 2006, the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) reported that exercise could cut risk of dying in patients with advanced colon cancer by almost half. The researchers watched 832 patients with stage III colon cancer. Patients reported on physical activities approximately 6 months after finishing treatment and were observed for recurrence or death. The patients engaged in more exercise had an adjusted hazard ratio for disease-free survival was 0.51
Translated into simple English, the people that exercised decreased their chance having cancer recurrence by 49%. [1]
Another JCO paper from the same month observed 573 women with stage I to III colorectal cancer, and tracked cancer caused death along with overall death rates in relation to levels of physical activity. The women who exercised decreased their risk of dying from cancer by 61% and from all causes by 57%. How physically active the women were prior to diagnosis did not make a difference. Increasing physical activity after diagnosis, however, had a much greater effect. [2]
A larger December 2007 article in the International Journal of Cancer also looked at women and colon cancer. This research analyzed risk of colon cancer in 79,295 women. Between the start of the study in 1986 and 2002, 547 cases of colon cancer were diagnosed in the group. The women who exercised had a 23% reduction in risk of developing colon cancer compared to women who didn’t. Walking 1-2 hours a week reduced risk by 31% compared to those who did not walk. Increasing hours spent in physical activity decreased risk. Women who exercised more than 4 hours a week had a 40% lower risk of colon cancer than those exercising less than an hour a week. [3]
A number of new papers on this weight, exercise and cancer relationship were presented at this years annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). Several of them focused on Body Mass Index (BMI). BMI is simply a measure of the ratio between belly and hip circumference. The bigger your belly is in relationship to your hips, the greater is your cancer risk. A larger BMI—it seems—means a larger risk all types of cancer, including breast cancer.
Information presented at ASCO tells us that breast cancer patients can survive longer without disease and live longer overall simply by losing weight and reducing their BMI. Reducing BMI improves response to cancer treatments and reduces complications. The data shows that even brisk walking provides a survival benefit for breast cancer patients.
Obesity clearly leads to worse outcomes in breast cancer. Litton and colleagues at MD Anderson, writing in JCO, compared BMI and response to chemotherapy in 1169 women treated for breast cancer from 1990 to 2004 by whether patients were obese. Chemotherapy was more likely to shrink tumors in normal weight patients than in the heavy patients. Obese patients also had fewer hormone-dependent tumors, a greater number of stage 3-4 tumors—all bad things to have—resulting in worse overall survival rates 4 years later. [4]
Patients with higher BMI have larger breast tumors, more positive lymph nodes, and worse tumor stage and grade. Danish researchers made these conclusions after evaluating BMI in 4,917 women diagnosed with breast cancer between 2001 and 2004. Losing the extra belly weight and reducing BMI is good for cancer patients. [5]
And, so is exercise. In another new ASCO paper, Irwin and his colleagues asked whether walking makes a difference in survival. They observed 933 women with breast cancer who were part of the Health, Eating, Activity and Lifestyle Study. The researchers found an association between pre- and post-diagnosis physical activity and mortality.
Compared with women who were inactive both before and after diagnosis, women who increased physical activity after diagnosis had a 45% lower risk of death. Women who decreased physical activity after diagnosis had a four-fold greater risk of death. [6]
This is intense to contemplate; do the math: the difference in risk between women who increase their exercise after diagnosis and those who decrease exercise is 8-fold.
Compare this with standard treatments for breast cancer. Typical estimates are that chemotherapy reduces risk of death by 10-20% and radiation therapy by 70%. Getting women diagnosed with breast cancer to exercise may prove to be as effective (or maybe even more effective) than standard treatments. Given current knowledge we need to focus on increasing fitness and exercise programs both to prevent and treat cancer. Exercise generally makes people feel better. Few would say the same about chemotherapy.”

Most already know exercise is one of the best ways to improve and maintain health, but with the latest emerging information on its ability to provoke a healing response and improve outcomes (i.e. less death) in people with serious illness such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes, it would be foolish not to get up off the couch and get moving.

You may not have control over your genes or over the pollutants and chemicals to which you are exposed, but you have control over what you eat and how much you move. These two items are the best insurance for a long, healthy life.

If you need help or don’t know where to start, please call me for a free 15 minute consultation.

Acknowledgment: Thank you to Dr. Jacob Schor of Denver Naturopathic Clinic for allowing me to provide my readers with the wealth of information which he so generously shares with his.

References

[1] Impact of physical activity on cancer recurrence and survival in patients with stage III colon cancer: findings from CALGB 89803. J Clin Oncol. 2006 Aug 1;24(22):3535-41.

[2] Physical activity and survival after colorectal cancer diagnosis. J Clin Oncol. 2006 Aug 1;24(22):3527-34.

[3] Leisure-time physical activity patterns and risk of colon cancer in women. Int J Cancer. 2007 Dec 15;121(12):2776-81.

[4] Litton et al. Relationship Between Obesity and Pathologic Response to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Among Women With Operable Breast Cancer. J Clin Oncol 26:4072-4077J

[5] Jensen A. R. al. The relation between Body Mass Index, comorbidity, choice of surgery, and prognostic factors in early breast cancer - Data from a nation-wide Danish cohort

[6] Irwin ML et al. Influence of Pre- and Postdiagnosis Physical Activity on Mortality in Breast Cancer Survivors: The Health, Eating, Activity, and Lifestyle Study ML J Clin Oncol 26:3958-3964