Physical activity improves quality of life before and after cancer, say Cochrane researchers.

The first review focused on 56 trials involving a total of 4,826 people undergoing treatment for different types of cancer, including breast and prostate cancer. The second focused on 40 trials involving a total of 3,694 people who had completed treatment for cancer. Exercise programmes in both reviews included walking, cycling, yoga, Qigong, resistance training and strength training. The results show that exercise can improve health-related quality of life for people with cancer. Further, results from both reviews show that exercise improved social functioning and tiredness. Benefits were also seen in the physical well-being of participants undergoing treatment and in self-esteem, emotional well-being, sexuality, sleep, anxiety and pain in people who had completed treatment.
"Together, these reviews suggest that exercise may provide quality of life benefits for people who are undergoing or have undergone treatment for cancer," said lead author Shiraz I. Mishra of the Prevention Research Center at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, US.
"However, we need to treat these findings with caution because the trials we included looked at many different kinds of exercise programmes, which varied by type of exercise, length of the programme and how hard the participants had to exercise. We need to understand from future trials how to maintain the positive impacts of exercise in the longer term and whether there are particular types of exercise that are suited to particular types of cancer."
Source-Eurekalert