Three hours a week of brisk walking can improve prostate cancer outcomes for men following their diagnosis, according to a recent study published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
“It appears that men who walk briskly after their diagnosis may delay or even prevent progression of their disease,” says lead researcher Erin Richman, Sc.D., a research associate at the University of California, San Francisco.
The research found that strolling does not have the same effect. Instead, men must power walk for at least three hours a week.
The outcomes of 1,455 men, mostly in their 60s, and those diagnosed with “localized” prostate cancer, which means that it had not yet started to spread, were observed by researchers at the University of California San Francisco.
Researchers asked the men to tell them how much exercise and what type of exercise they participated in on average every week.
One hundred and seventeen events were recorded by researchers during the 31 months of follow up. These events included disease recurrence, bone tumors and deaths that were specifically caused by prostate cancer.
The results suggest that men who walked briskly for at least three hours a week were less likely to have one of the events occur.
A 57% rate of progression of the disease were found in brisk walkers, compared to those who walked at a more leisurely pace for less than three hours a week.
Richman said, “The benefit from walking truly depended on how quickly you walked. Walking at an easy pace did not seem to have any benefit.”
One reason why scientists believe that power walking can make a difference in prostate cancer progression is the changing blood levels of certain proteins that have been shown in the lab to encourage cancer growth, reports BBC News.
Although walking is something everyone can do to help improve their health, experts caution on the interpretation of the findings, since the men who tend to do more walking also were younger, leaner and non-smokers, which could explain the differences being observed.
“We know there are many benefits to exercise and that it can help people to recover more quickly after cancer treatment but it’s difficult to set specific levels of exercise as everyone’s needs and abilities are different,” Liz Woolf of Cancer Research UKtold BBC.
“Just to be safe, it is important that people with cancer check with their doctor before taking up any new form of exercise,” she added.
According to the National Cancer Institute, 217,000 U.S. men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year, with 32,050 men dying from the disease last year alone. It is the second leading cause of cancer death among men.
Head of research management at the Prostate Cancer Charity Dr. Helen Rippon says, “Although this research will need to be repeated to make sure the results can be applied to all men with prostate cancer, we would certainly advise men diagnosed with prostate cancer to ensure that their lifestyle includes a good amount of physical activity – and walking is often the easiest way of achieving this.”
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