Exercising can help cancer
patients feel better mentally and physically, a new
analysis of data from published research shows.
But it remains unclear what type of exercise is most
effective or how much a person needs to work out in
order to benefit, lead author Dr. Vicki S. Conn of
Missouri University-Columbia's Sinclair School of
Nursing and her colleagues note.
The benefits of exercise for healthy people are well
known, but the growing body of research on whether
exercise can help patients undergoing cancer treatment
has produced mixed results, the researchers report
in the July issue of Supportive Care in Cancer.
To investigate, Conn and her team combined the findings
of 30 previous studies that investigated the effects
of exercise on cancer patients. Thirteen of the studies
were conducted with breast cancer patients, while
21 looked at supervised exercise rather than at-home
workouts.
Exercise had the strongest effect on boosting patients'
physical function, such as improving their ability
to climb stairs or walk a certain distance. It improved
patients' body composition, increasing the percentage
of lean muscle mass to total weight.
Exercise reduced some symptoms, such as nausea and
vomiting and pain, and modest improvements were seen
in fatigue, mood and quality of life.
Given the relatively small benefits for exercise
identified by their analysis, Conn and her colleagues
suggest combining exercise with other inventions designed
to improve cancer patients' physical and mental health.
"Overall, the data support the potential efficacy
of exercise interventions among cancer patients,"
Conn and her colleagues write. "Controlled experiments
testing variations in intervention components and
delivery are urgently needed to move forward our understanding
of effective strategies to improve health and well
being outcomes in this population."
SOURCE: Supportive Care in Cancer, July 2006.
