A 2013 study by researchers at the University of Minnesota found that exercising appears to reduce a woman's risk of breast cancer. Now the University of Montreal Hospital Research Center is going to run a major clinical trial to further explore the link between exercise and surviving cancer.
The 2013 breast cancer research was conducted on 391 inactive, healthy, premenopausal women to understand how exercise affects their estrogen levels - a major contributing factor to the development of breast cancer.
"Ours is the first study to show that aerobic exercise influences the way our bodies break down estrogens to produce more of the 'good' metabolites that lower breast cancer risk," Mindy Kurzer, a professor in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota said about the study.
Fast forward to 2016 and over 100 researchers from all over the world will be pooling their efforts for the University of Minnesota's new clinical trial to try and establish whether exercise could provide an alternative to traditional cancer treatments.
The trial will be funded by the Movember Foundation at a $10 million and will initially involve prostate cancer patients, reported Global News.
The large scale project has already launched in Australia and Ireland and will soon be available in 10 cities in Canada, including Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.
"We want to actually prove [exercise] does more than just makes you feel better and actually prolongs your survival. If we can prove it, hopefully it'll be funded like a cancer drug," explained Dr. Fred Saad, a urologist-oncologist at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre.
The study will span five years. In this time, researchers hope that they will be able to determine whether exercise as a form of treatment is applicable to other types of cancer.
According to an article on GizMag, the trials will be participated in by some 60 hospitals with a target of 900 patients with advanced prostate cancer.
While on the programme, the participants will still receive their regular cancer medication and treatment. Half of the patients will undergo physical exercise, while half will be required to follow a high intensity exercise programme consisting of a cardiovascular workout – a combination of aerobic and resistance training three times per week.
For the first year of the trial, the patients will receive direct supervision to make sure that they are religiously abiding by the coursework.
During this time, the researchers will regularly monitor the participants' blood, as well as muscle biopsies to check how the two groups are performing.
