Even a little exercise may help people avoid and survive many types of cancer, according to new exercise guidelines released today that focus on how exercise affects cancer outcomes.
Cancer is, of course, one of the world’s most common major diseases, with more than 18 million people globally diagnosed with some form of the condition in 2018. It also is often treatable and today, millions of people are cancer survivors. So, physicians, therapists and scientists, working with cancer patients, continue to look for accessible, inexpensive ways to improve the lives of cancer patients and also, more fundamentally, reduce the risk that someone will develop cancer in the first place.
In 2008, a large group of researchers convened to comb through the available science about exercise and cancer and decide if there was enough evidence to tell patients that they could and even should work out. In 2010, the, which amounted to saying that exercise appeared to be safe for most people with cancer and they should try, in general, to be active.