As men, getting older can bring about many unpleasant problems–lack of mobility, a weaker body, and if you’re unlucky, a brush with prostate cancer.
But now there may be an easy way to treat it–and all it takes is a brisk walk outdoors.
According to new findings presented at the American Association for Cancer Research-Prostate Cancer Foundation Conference of Advances in Prostate Cancer Research, men who walked briskly regularly were less likely to have poor prostate cancer outcomes due to how it affects blood vessels in prostate tumors.
And that, say researchers, could save countless amounts of lives.
“Prior research has shown that men with prostate tumors containing more regularly shaped blood vessels have a more favorable prognosis compared with men with prostate tumors containing mostly irregularly shaped blood vessels,” says Erin Van Blarigan, Sc.D., a University of California assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. “In this study, we found that men who reported walking at a brisk pace had more regularly shaped blood vessels in their prostate tumors compared with men who reported walking at a less brisk pace.”
Investigating The Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, a study which started in 1986 to track how certain nutritional and lifestyle habits affect the rate of certain diseases, such as cancer, researchers looked at the blood vessel shapes of men with prostate tumors at varying stages of prostate cancer. Circular blood vessels are considered the ideal type, and researchers compared the shape of the vessels against the participants’ history of exercise.
As for what they found, researchers discovered that men who walked briskly, or between 3.3 to 4.5 miles per hours, before their prostate cancer diagnosis were 8 percent more likely to have normal shaped blood vessels–and have a better survival rate.
For Van Blarigan, this signals the need for more men to make exercise, especially vigorous exercise, a daily habit.
“Our findings suggest a possible mechanism by which exercise may improve outcomes in men with prostate cancer,” says Van Blarigan. “Although data from randomized, controlled trials are needed before we can conclude that exercise causes a change in vessel regularity or clinical outcomes in men with prostate cancer, our study supports the growing evidence of the benefits of exercise, such as brisk walking, for men with prostate cancer.”
And if you need more evidence, chew on this: Previous studies have found that men who exercise frequently are less likely to die from prostate cancer, so it’s definitely worth it to make daily exercise a habit.
“Our study, which provides a potential explanation by which exercise may improve outcomes in men with prostate cancer, highlights the value of multidisciplinary collaborations between laboratory, clinical, and population scientists to explore new pathways by which lifestyle factors or other exposures may affect disease,” says Van Blarigan. “It is reasonable to hypothesize that the same explanation could exist for the beneficial effects of exercise in other cancers, and it would be interesting to examine this in future studies.”
Readers: What are some other lifestyle habits you do to lower your cancer risk?
Source:
Study: Brisk Walking May Improve Prostate Cancer Outcomes – WBUR.org
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