Cancer survivors urged to eat better, exercise

MIKE STOBBE

AP Med­ical Writer

ATLANTA — A can­cer diag­no­sis often inspires peo­ple to exer­cise and eat health­ier. Now the experts say there’s strong evi­dence that both habits may help pre­vent the dis­ease from com­ing back.

New guide­lines issued Thurs­day by the Amer­i­can Can­cer Soci­ety urge doc­tors to talk to their can­cer patients about eat­ing right, exer­cis­ing and slim­ming down if they’re too heavy.

That’s not some­thing most doc­tors do, said Dr. Omer Kucuk, an Emory Uni­ver­sity oncol­o­gist who has researched the effect of nutri­tion on prostate can­cer. They’re focused on surgery, chemother­apy or other treat­ments for their patients, he added.

“Usu­ally the last thing on their mind is to talk about diet and exer­cise,” Kucuk said.

Can­cer soci­ety offi­cials have long encour­aged healthy eat­ing and exer­cise as a way to pre­vent cer­tain can­cers. They and oth­ers have tried to spread that gospel to can­cer sur­vivors as well. Indeed, the can­cer soci­ety has a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram for fit­ness pro­fes­sion­als who work with can­cer survivors.

But until now, the group didn’t think there was enough research to sup­port a strong state­ment for can­cer survivors.

Has­tine Reese, a breast can­cer sur­vivor, says she began to exer­cise because her hus­band — not her doc­tor — pushed her. Besides being good for her health, he thought it might help pull her out of the depres­sion that fol­lowed her diag­no­sis and double-mastectomy.

“When you’re first diag­nosed with can­cer, you go into a dark place,” said Reese, as she fin­ished a one-hour exer­cise class this week at DeKalb Med­ical Cen­ter in Decatur, Ga.

Exer­cise has changed that. “I’m com­ing into the light, and it’s get­ting brighter and brighter,” she said.

Being over­weight or obese has long been tied to an increased risk of sev­eral types of can­cer, includ­ing can­cers of the colon, esoph­a­gus, kid­ney, pan­creas and — in post­menopausal women — breast. But there hadn’t been much evi­dence on the effects of diet and exer­cise for peo­ple who had had cancer.

The last five years saw more than 100 stud­ies involv­ing can­cer sur­vivors, many of them show­ing that exer­cise and/or a healthy diet was asso­ci­ated with lower can­cer recur­rence rates and longer survival.

Most of the research was on breast, prostate and col­orec­tal can­cer. The evi­dence is more mea­ger when it comes to other can­cers, includ­ing the dead­liest kind, lung can­cer. Also, most of the work involved obser­va­tional stud­ies, which can’t prove a cause and effect. Still, the vol­ume of research was compelling.

“We’ve got enough data now to make these rec­om­men­da­tions,” said Colleen Doyle, the organization’s direc­tor of nutri­tion and phys­i­cal activity.

At least two other med­ical groups have strongly rec­om­mended exer­cise and health­ier eat­ing for can­cer sur­vivors, but the can­cer society’s new guide­lines are expected to have much greater impact. It’s the nation’s largest can­cer char­ity in both dona­tions and the num­ber of vol­un­teers, and it funds more can­cer research than any other non-governmental agency.

There was a time when can­cer patients were thought of as gaunt and dying souls. Many can­cers were diag­nosed at a late stage, after the dis­ease had rav­aged the body and caused weight loss.

But bet­ter screen­ing and treat­ment has made early diag­no­sis of can­cer more com­mon and sur­vival more likely. Today, more than two-thirds of can­cer patients live at least five years. The ranks of can­cer sur­vivors have grown, with more than 12 mil­lion Amer­i­cans iden­ti­fied as can­cer survivors.

Mean­while, obe­sity has boomed. More than two-thirds of U.S. adults are now con­sid­ered over­weight or obese.

The guide­lines rec­og­nize that for some peo­ple just eat­ing enough food is a pri­or­ity, and that diet advice can vary dur­ing treat­ment. The can­cer soci­ety also notes that some peo­ple may be too weak at times for vig­or­ous exer­cise. But experts say that even mod­est activ­i­ties, like lift­ing soup cans while watch­ing TV, can help.

Women seem to take to exer­cise and diet rec­om­men­da­tions more read­ily than men, or to push their spouses to fol­low the advice, some doc­tors said. Most of Reese’s class­mates were women.

“I find women to be very, very proac­tive,” said Dr. Allen Law­head, a gyne­co­logic oncol­o­gist at DeKalb Med­ical Cen­ter. “Men, we tra­di­tion­ally go back into our man cave and hide.”

Lawrence Gen­ter, a sur­vivor of non-Hodgkin’s lym­phoma, was one of three men in Reese’s class of about a dozen. “I’m here because of my wife,” he said.

For another can­cer sur­vivor, exer­cise came easy but eat­ing healthy was a chal­lenge. Dur­ing chemother­apy, nau­sea is com­mon and food can seem unappetizing.

“The key thing is to eat period — what­ever you can get down and keep down,” said Bob Falken­berg of Alpharetta, Ga., who was a marathoner and long-distance cyclist before he was diag­nosed with leukemia.

What did he eat dur­ing chemo? Mex­i­can food. Hamburgers.

“I had peo­ple bring in pizza at one point,” he laughed.

Posted by AP News on Apr 26 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.