Exercise may Prevent Colon Cancer
Colon cancer can be one of the most difficult and dangerous cancers to treat, and it's just as hard to detect. That's why prevention is key. Fortunatley, slashing your risk of colon polyps and cancer is as easy as getting some daily exercise.
According to a recent study from researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, vigourous exercise can help men of any size, provided that they work out often-almost every day.
The researchers studied 102 men and 100 women, all between the ages of 40 and 75, with the average age being in the mid-50s. All of the participants had undergone a colonoscopy within the past three years.
At the start of the study, participants were all considered healthy, but their lifestyles were relatively sedentary. The researchers certain participants a treadmill test to test their maximum heart rate. Then the participants received heart rate monitors and an exercise prescription, which consisted of:.
One hour of aerobic exercise six days weekly for a year.
Moderate to vigorous workouts, during which they should reach between 60 percent to 85 percent of maximum heart rate.
Then, to get an adequate comparison, the researchers didn't assign exercise to the remaining participants. And all of the participants were asked to not change their diets.
Of course, with any exercise study, one of the hardest, but most important tasks is to make sure that the participants aren't fudging on how well they stick to the plan. Fortunately, in this case, the researchers were ready.
They designed the study tosee whether participants in the exercise group followed orders, by instructing them to wear pedometers, a simple little device that counts every step you take. Then, every week the participants turned I logs of their at-home workouts. Workouts performed directly at the study site were also logged.
The particpants in the exercise group received monthly progress reviews, newsletters, and incentives, along with group social events. Overall, researchers found that the exercise group adhered to the program very well, with the men averaging just over six hours of weekly workouts and the women averaging nearly five hours.
After a year of following the exercise program, participants took flexible sigmoidoscopy tests.
In flexible sigmoidoscopy, doctors guide a thin, flexible tube with a tiny camera attached through the lower colon to check for abnormal growths-like polyps-which could eventually become cancerous. (This procedure is much like a colonoscopy, the main difference being that a colonoscopy examines the entire colon, not just the lower portion.)
Among the men, the researchers found substantially fewer signs of problems if the participant had followed the exercise prescription. Those men had improved aerobic fitness-and the men with the best aerobic fitness had the fewest problems in their colon.
You're probably wondering about the women, though. Unfortunately, women in the exercise group didn't show any difference, though the researchers weren't quite sure why.
One possibility is that, since exercise can lower a woman's estrogen levels, the women needed that extra estrogen to offer more colon protection. But that's just a guess by the researchers. Or it could be that the women simply exercised slightly less than the men. Maybe that small difference was just enough to affect their entire outcome.
Of course, that doesn't mean that a woman should disregard exercise entirely, simply because it might not protect her from one type of cancer. Exercise is proven to promote regularity among men AND women-and regularity is an important part of maintaining good colon health.
