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Exercise Oncology...what say you?
Prostate Cancer | Last Active: Aug 10 4:35pm | Replies (77)Comment receiving replies
Yes, I hear you with the running. I tried running once I was out of the wheelchair, but it was more of a 1K shuffle, and even that was kind of a miracle (it wasn't certain I'd walk again at all after the tumour compressed my spine). For me, walking works much better. At first, 1,000 steps in a day would knock me out, but now I can do up to 15,000 on a good day (8,000 more typically). Combined with light weight training and chores around the house (gardening, snow clearing, yardwork), that keeps my heart and body in reasonably good shape while respecting my disability (I never got 100% back below my ribs).
Ditto for you with your knee. The important thing isn't to follow a rigid programme, but to stay active however we're able. Some trials (like ERASE that @handera mentioned) put participants on a fixed exercise programme, but that's not necessarily because there's something magic about that specific set of activities (other than the fact that it was high intensity); it's just to make sure they were comparing apples to apples with the trial results.
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Although not as robust as the ERASE RCT, two large observational studies looked af walking and it’s correlation to slowing PCa progression.
The Cancer of the Prostate Strategic Urologic Research Endeavor (CaPSURE) Study (2011) and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (2011) are worth reviewing if interested.
Links below:
https://aacrjournals.org/cancerres/article/71/11/3889/657469/Physical-Activity-after-Diagnosis-and-Risk-of
https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.2010.31.5226
Walking briskly for at least 3 hours per week appears to offer significant benefits, with a 57% lower progression rate in the CaPSURE study. Longer durations (e.g., ≥7 hours/week) at a brisk pace may further reduce risk.
Both studies consistently highlighted that brisk walking (≥3 mph) is more strongly associated with reduced prostate cancer progression than duration alone.
For example, the CaPSURE study found that walking duration without a brisk pace did not significantly reduce progression risk.
This suggests that intensity is a key factor, and simply increasing walking time at a leisurely pace may not yield the same benefits, if slowing progression is your goal.
Light, long duration walking may have other non PCa benefits; but these studies suggest that slowing PCa progression is not one of them.