Exercise beats fatigue in prostate cancer

Staying active and moderate walking helps prevent fatigue in men undergoing radiation therapy for prostate cancer. Cancer patients commonly develop fatigue as the stress of the illness and the physical effects of treatment take their toll. It's common for patients undergoing treatment to self-impose limits on their daily activities. Researchers randomly assigned 66 men with localized prostate cancer to either an exercise group or a control group. The exercisers walked at a moderate pace for 30 minutes, three days per week; patients in the control group were not discouraged from performing their usual activities, but were told to rest if they became tired. After four weeks of radiation therapy, men in the control group were more fatigued than they did before treatment; and one month later, these patients were still showing signs of weariness. In contrast, exercisers showed no significant increase in fatigue at any point during the study. The findings are in line with research of women undergoing radiation and chemotherapy for breast cancer. Such results potentially apply to all groups of patients with cancer. While rest may be the intuitive response to fatigue, too much inactivity can make the problem worse. Long periods of rest, may de-condition muscles and roll back a person's capacity for exercise, making even routine daily tasks tough to tackle. Exercise, on the other hand, keeps muscles conditioned, so that everyday activities require less effort and are less taxing on the body. The research suggests that exercise combats depression, which can alter patients' perceptions of fatigue.

COMMENT