Staying Active Helps Boost The Benefits of Chemotherapy Treatments

Staying fit throughout chemotherapy treatments might seem like the last thing on a cancer patient's mind. Yet recent findings published in the journal Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology show that it could be a critical opportunity to help push for the essential benefits of the treatments.

Researchers found that exercise helped shrink tumors faster than just the treatments, alone.

Prior research has shown that exercise prior to therapy can help prevent the risk of heart failure in patients taking these harsh yet life-saving drugs.

In this two-week study trial, researchers examined the hearts of four different groups of mice--all of whom had been given an injection of cancer cells. Two received the drug doxorubicin while the other received placebos. One week following one treatment, a group was put on an exercise regimen of 45 minutes of walking for five times a day, via treadmills.

Findings revealed that exercise did not help prevent heart strain caused by the drug.

"It didn't worsen it, it didn't help it," said lead study author Joseph Libonati of Penn's School of Nursing, in a news release. "But the tumor data - I find them actually amazing."

However, those who received both the drug and exercise had significantly smaller tumors than those with the placebo and in a non-exercising group.

"If exercise helps in this way, you could potentially use a smaller dose of the drug (with intense exercise) and get fewer side effects," she concluded.