Exercise Cure: Working Out Cuts Cancer Risk in Half, Study Shows

A landmark new research project, analyzing the medical records of about 70,000 cancer patients, provides the strongest evidence yet that exercise slashes the risk of dying from the deadly disease. In fact, cancer patients who exercise regularly are almost half as likely as non-exercising peers to die from the life-threatening illness, the study reveals.

“Based on what scientific research tells us, if cancer patients exercise regularly they will significantly improve their health and well-being, potentially improving their longevity,” lead researcher Dr. Prue Cormie tells Newsmax Health. Cormie, a principal research fellow at the Australian Catholic University’s Institute for Health and Aging in Melbourne, Australia, conducted the study with Dr. Kathryn H. Schmitz.at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. She says she hopes the findings, published in the journal Epidemiologic Reviews, “will help inspire people with cancer to start exercising” and encourage doctors to “prescribe” physical fitness the way they would medication to treat cancer. “The real novelty and impact of this work comes from the fact that it is the most comprehensive analysis of the available data,” she explains.

“This research has established exercise as an effective medicine that can be prescribed to counteract the adverse effects caused by cancer treatments and reduce the relative risk of cancer death or cancer recurrence.” Cormie adds that the research suggests it doesn’t matter what type of exercise people do. Walking and lifting weights have been shown to be particularly beneficial, but other forms of exercise are also beneficial. To reach their conclusions, Cormie’s medical scientists analysed 100 studies worldwide to confirm key findings showing death rates among cancer patients who exercise regularly plunged by almost half — up to 44 percent — compared with those who didn’t.

The researchers excluded studies that didn’t differentiate between deaths from cancer and other causes. They also took into account other factors that might contribute to the differences. In addition to cutting cancer deaths, exercise was linked with a lower risk — up to 35 percent — of cancers recurring. Physical activity also reduced the impacts of side effects from chemotherapy and other treatments. Cancer death risks were also “significantly lower” for those who engaged in the highest levels of exercise, compared to those who did were not as physically active.

“The findings of this review support the view that exercise is an important adjunct therapy in the management of cancer,” the researchers concluded. “Compared with patients who performed no exercise, patients who exercised following a diagnosis of cancer were observed to have a lower relative risk of cancer mortality and recurrence and experienced fewer adverse effects. Dr. Kathy Chapman, chairwoman of Cancer Council Australia’s nutrition and physical activity committee, suggests the landmark study should change the way doctors care for cancer patients. "This study confirms the importance of recommending exercise to people with cancer,” she says. "The evidence has been building over the past 10 years that exercise should be an adjunct to regular cancer treatment — especially for people with bowel, breast and prostate cancer.

People with cancer who incorporate exercise into their lifestyle have better overall survival rates and also experience better quality of life. Exercise has been shown to be beneficial in alleviating fatigue, a common side effect of cancer treatment.

Foods that lower breast cancer risk? New study offers clues

Teenage girls who consume large amounts of fruit may lower their future risk for breast cancer, a new study suggests.

Conversely, women who drink more alcohol over time might increase their breast cancer risk, although they could also lower their chances of heart disease, a second report found.

In the fruit study, consumption of apples, bananas and grapes during adolescence was strongly associated with a drop in breast cancer risk. Roughly three daily servings of such fruits was linked to a 25 percent drop in risk by middle age, compared with consuming just a half-serving per day.

Women who ate oranges and/or kale as young adults also seemed to gain some protection from breast cancer, the investigators noted. But drinking fruit juice did not appear to confer any benefit.

"This is the first study that specifically shows that high fruit intake during adolescence may be linked with reduced breast cancer risk," said study author Maryam Farvid. She is a research associate in the department of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.

Still, Farvid cautioned that "due to the observational nature of the study, we could not provide evidence of cause and effect," only an association between fruit consumption and a drop in breast cancer risk.

In the study, the researchers analyzed food questionnaires completed in 1991 by just over 90,000 women -- aged 27 to 44 -- who had enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study II two years earlier. That survey focused on diets during early adulthood.

In 1998, more than 44,000 of the women completed a second food survey. That survey asked participants to recall what food they had consumed during adolescence.

Food and drink consumption was also tallied once every four years from 1991 to 2013, at which point the women were asked to recall their diets over the prior year. Breast cancer status was tracked every two years.

Over the two decades of the study, more than 3,200 women developed invasive breast cancer. Adolescent dietary information was available for about 1,350 of those women.

In the end, the research team concluded that higher fruit intake during adolescence was associated with a lower risk for breast cancer.

The report was published May 11 in the BMJ.

In an accompanying editorial, a team from the University of Oxford cautioned that "much more evidence is needed" before adolescent fruit intake can be declared protective. At the same time, the Oxford researchers suggested that people of all ages would do well to increase their intake of fruits and vegetables.

Farvid agreed. "Parents could do a great job in providing plenty of fruits and vegetables at home, and encouraging teens to adopt healthy eating habits," she said.

That advice was seconded by Lona Sandon, program director in the department of clinical nutrition at the UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

"You'll probably never be able to prove cause and effect, but time and time again the data shows that there's something to starting out life with a healthy diet," she said.

"Fruit has vitamins, minerals and all sorts of plant compounds that appear to be healthy for us," Sandon added. "And it's also worth noting that if teens are consuming more fruit, what are they not consuming instead? Are they eating less candy, cookies, cakes and soda? That may play a role as well."

Meanwhile, the second study in the same journal explored the impact of long-term alcohol consumption on breast cancer risk.

Led by Marie Dam of the University of Southern Denmark, that investigation tracked alcohol patterns among roughly 22,000 postmenopausal women between 1993 and 1998, and again between 1999 and 2003.

In the end, the Danish team concluded that women who increased their overall alcohol intake by two drinks per day (over either five-year period) ended up boosting their breast cancer risk by up to 30 percent.

At the same time, Dam and her colleagues found that women who increased their alcohol consumption ended up with a 20 percent lower risk for heart disease, relative to women whose drinking patterns didn't change.

Interestingly, cutting back on alcohol did not translate into improved odds in terms of either breast cancer or heart disease, the team team noted.

"We've known for a long time that alcohol consumption is related to breast cancer," said Sandon. "So this is not surprising, even if it is a conundrum in terms of heart health. But if you have risk factors for breast cancer in your family, perhaps drinking red wine is not a good choice," Sandon added.

"And there are better things you can do for heart health than drink," she said. Her suggestions: "Exercise, eat whole grains and stay at a healthy weight."

You Asked: Can Deodorant Give You Cancer?

By Markham Heid 

There may be reasons to worry—though hard proof remains elusive.

If you’ve seen the 1989 film Batman—the one with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson—you’ll recall that the Joker terrorizes Gotham City by slipping toxic chemicals into cosmetics: while no single item is lethal, combining deodorant with shampoo and lipstick could kill you.

It’s hard not to think of that movie while chatting with toxicologists who study the potential risk of deodorant and antiperspirant ingredients, especially parabens and aluminum. However, according to the American Cancer Society’s website, there is no “clear” or “direct” link between parabens or aluminum and cancer. The National Cancer Institute site says “more research is needed.”

The FDA, for its part, says “FDA believes that at the present time there is no reason for consumers to be concerned about the use of cosmetics containing parabens. However, the agency will continue to evaluate new data in this area. If FDA determines that a health hazard exists, the agency will advise the industry and the public.

But “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” says Dr. Philip Harvey, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Applied Toxicology.

Dr. Philippa Darbre, an oncologist at the University of Reading in the U.K., has published more than 30 research papers on those substances found in underarm deodorant and other personal care products. She says that many of these ingredients are concerning on their own. But the health risks of each may be greater—and more difficult to identify—when you consider the complex chemical cocktails that form when they combine.

For example, her research has detected parabens—a category of chemical that acts as a preservative in some underarm and personal care products—in women’s breast tissue, though how those parabens got there and what happens when they are in breast tissue is unknown.

In Darbre’s experiments, combining different parabens with human cells creates activity that may contribute to the development of cancer. But attempts to find these links in humans—as opposed to in petri dishes—have produced inconsistent results. One 2002 study found no correlation between underarm product use and breast cancer; a 2003 study did find ties. Darbre says both studies have flaws and leave many important questions unanswered.

Like Darbre, Harvey has looked into the ways cosmetics interact with your body. He says wiping these chemicals under your arms and on the sides of your chest or breasts “could provide a route of almost direct exposure to underlying tissue containing estrogen receptors.”

Both parabens and aluminum are “estrogenic” chemicals—meaning they interact with your body’s hormones or cells in ways similar to estrogen. That’s concerning, because excess estrogen plays a role in promoting the growth of cancer cells, according to the National Cancer Institute. While many experts think cosmetic chemicals like parabens have only “weak” estrogenic activity, Harvey doesn’t agree. He says, “It is often quoted that parabens are thousands of times less potent than estrogen in terms of their estrogenicity. This can be misleading and ignores actual exposures.”

Harvey says his own calculations suggest these cosmetic chemicals may “significantly add to estrogenic burdens.” Because of that, he says he questions the wisdom of including any chemical with known hormonal activity in your personal care regimen.

But until he and other researchers are able to explain—and demonstrate—the ways these chemicals cause health problems, no regulatory changes are likely.

That’s because unless a chemical is proven harmful, regulators allow you to eat it, smoke it, brush with it or slather it on your body. Finding that proof of harm is a difficult, costly and time-consuming proposition. Darbre says researchers can’t simply mix some human cells and some chemicals in a test tube and watch for cancer to pop up.

So where does that leave deodorant and antiperspirant users? Largely in in the dark, Darbre says. “People want a simple fix,” she says. “Unfortunately it is not simple.”


Until more is known, consumers are in a bind. “Avoiding certain publicized chemicals is only the tip of the iceberg,” she says. Darbre says she switched to a twice-daily regimen of underarm cleaning with soap and water. (“No one has yet complained!” she jokes.) Frequent pit scrubbing may seem unnecessarily laborious—or just plain weird. But if you’re concerned about the chemicals you rub on your body, regular bathing might seem like an attractive alternative.

Vitamin D may boost breast cancer survival odds

By RYAN JASLOW CBS NEWS

Researchers reported in the March 6 issue of Anticancer Research that patients with high levels of Vitamin D in their blood were twice as likely to survive the disease than women with low levels of the nutrient.

The researchers think vitamin D should be included to supplement other breast cancer treatments.

"The study has implications for including vitamin D as an adjuvant to conventional breast cancer therapy," study co-author Dr. Heather Hofflich, an associate professor of medicine at the University of California San Diego, said in a press release.

Vitamin D is produced naturally by the body from exposure to sunlight, but it's also fortified in milks, cereals and other foods. Very few foods contain vitamin D naturally, but the best sources are fatty fish and fish liver oils, according to the National Institutes of Health's Office of Dietary Supplements.

It can also be taken in supplement form. The NIH's recommended daily allowance for vitamin D is 600 IU for adults and 800 IU for people over 70 years old.

The researchers reviewed five studies of Vitamin D that included more than 4,440 women with breast cancer.

The studies measured the amount of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in the blood, a metabolite produced in the body from ingesting the vitamin.

There was variation in absorption, but the researchers said people who consume 4,000 IUs of vitamins per day had a serum level of 50 nanograms per milliliter. One tablespoon of cod liver oil has 1,360 IUs, a can of tuna contains 154 IUs per serving, and a cup of fortified milk and orange juice contains between 115 and 137 IUs of vitamin D, respectively.

The researchers discovered that women who had 30 nanograms per milliliter of the metabolite in their blood were twice as likely to survive breast cancer than women who had 17 nanograms per milliliter of 25-hydroxyvitamin D.

"There is no compelling reason to wait for further studies to incorporate vitamin D supplements into standard care regimens since a safe dose of vitamin D needed to achieve high serum levels above 30 nanograms per milliliter has already been established," lead study author Dr. Cedric F. Garland of UCSD, added in a statement.

The researchers explained vitamin D metabolites switch on a protein that blocks aggressive cell division. This prevents tumor growth and keeps the cancer from expanding in the blood supply, he said.

Early Baldness May Signal Cancer Risk

Researchers in Australia are suggesting that men who lose their hair early in life are likely to suffer prostate cancer. Research among 10,000 adults uncovered that men with high levels of testosterone, the hormone that can facilitate hair loss, may be more vulnerable to cancerous tumors later in life. Experts at the Cancer Council of Victoria in Australia monitored 9,448 men who were taking part in a long-term health study.

The men, aged between 40 and 69 when the project began were asked to score how much hair they had lost at the age of 20 and at the age of 40. The results showed men who were mostly bald at 40 were significantly more likely to develop early-onset cancer, which for some could be in their fifties or sixties.

Both prostate cancer and hair loss are strongly age-related conditions that are considered to be hormone dependent. They found that baldness at the age of 40 might be a marker of increased risk of early-onset prostate cancer.

If you or a loved one have suffered from early male hair loss, make sure that you get a yearly health examination from your physician. Also speak with your physician about the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test and whether or not you would benefit from the screening.

For more information about hair loss solutions, call 713-623-4247. Our master stylist, Ricky Knowles and his team can help you find the right customized solution to fit your lifestyle.