How Exercise Could Extend Life After a Colon Cancer Diagnosis

Credit: Adobe Stock/ JodieWang

If you have colon cancer, regular exercise after Stage 3 treatment may just be what you need to survive longer, according to new Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Research.

“Some exercise is better than none,” said senior author Jeffrey Meyerhardt, M.D., M.P.H., chief clinical research officer and co-director of the Colon and Rectal Care Center at Dana-Farber, in a statement. “If you can’t get out for an hour, try 10 or 20 minutes.”

Research has previously indicated that more physical activity after treatment prolongs survival. A team at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, led by Lee Jones, Ph.D., the chief of the exercise oncology service, analyzed a large data set and found people diagnosed with cancer who regulatory exercise has a 25% reduced risk of dying from all causes compared with people with cancer who did not exercise. Jones and his team discovered that the mean survival time increased by about five years in people who exercised versus those who did not.

The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center study evaluated the impact of exercise on several types of cancer: renal (kidney cell), head and neck, breast and prostate. However, as seen from this latest study, exercise’s impact is no exception for those with colon cancer.

This study, published in CANCER, an international interdisciplinary journal of the American Cancer Society, on Feb. 24, examined data from two National Cancer Institute-sponsored clinical trials evaluating patients with Stage 3 colon cancer who underwent surgery, were treated with chemotherapy, and had the option to self-report their lifestyle habits during and after treatment.

Out of everyone who participated in these two studies, 2,876 self-reported their physical activity. Researchers calculated survival rates after a median of 6 years for the first trial (CALGB 89803) and 5.9 years for the second trial (CALGB 80702). Activity levels were then converted into metabolic-equivalent (MET) hours per week. Essentially, a person who walks most days a week for about an hour will get about 18 MET-hours of activity.

In the pooled sample, the mean age at diagnosis was 60.8 years, and slightly over half were male (56%). Participants had a physical activity volume of either under 3 MET-hours (29.2%), 3 to 17.9 MET-hours (44%), or over 18 (26.8%) MET-hours per week.

Participants who survived three years after treatment and had high activity levels, indicated by at least 18 MET-hours per week, had survival rates that were closer to those of the general population, only 3.5% lower. However, participants with low activity levels, less than 3 MET-hours per week, had a 17.1% lower survival rate than the general population.

In the other analysis, participants with high and low activity levels had overall survival rates that were 4.4% and 10.8% lower than those of the general population, respectively.

Both trials showed more activity was linked to improved survival rates, regardless of a participant’s age at the time of a diagnosis. Pooled results from both trials found participants with low activity levels had 3.1% lower survival rates than the general population. But, promisingly, participants with high activity levels had 2.9% greater overall survival rates than the matched general population.

Most tumor recurrences occur within two or three years of diagnosis with Stage 3 colon cancer. For patients whose cancer returned, those with low activity levels had 50.5% lower survival rates than the general population, but high activity levels had only a 33.2% lower overall survival rate.

“Those who were more active had improvements in survival even if their cancer recurred,” Meyerhardt said. “And for those who did not experience a recurrence, their overall survival rates looked better than the matched general population.”