Colon cancer survivors who exercise regularly live longer

(Maria Godoy/ NPR) –– Colon cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death worldwide, and it’s on the rise among younger adults in the U.S. But research recently published in the journal Cancer, finds regular exercise can help survivors live longer — in some cases, even longer than people who’ve never had colon cancer.

“I think the important message is, some level of activity is better than staying inactive,” says Dr. Jeff Meyerhardt, co-director of the Colon and Rectal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the study’s senior author. He says the results suggest exercise can have a “meaningful impact” on a patient’s long-term prognosis.

When it comes to colon cancer, the good news is that overall, death rates have been falling thanks to improvements in screening and treatment. But survivors still tend to have a shorter life expectancy than people of the same age and sex in the general population, in large part because of the risk that the cancer will come back.

Meyerhardt says researchers have long known that exercise can improve survival rates in colon cancer patients. But he and his colleagues wanted to know if regular physical activity could actually help patients improve their survival rates compared to people who’d never had cancer. (…)