Study Links Exercise to Improved Prostate Cancer Outcomes

A study associates exercise to improved outcomes for men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer.

The study presented at the AACR-Prostate Cancer Foundation Conference on Advances in Prostate Cancer Research, reveals that men who engaged in vigorous physical activity prior to prostate cancer diagnosis had more regularly shaped blood vessels in the prostate tumors, which in-turn slowed down the cancer aggressiveness.

The study clearly highlights the fact that men who engaged in fast-pace walking had a reduced risk of prostate cancer recurrence as well as mortality when compared to men who were involved in limited or no physical activity. The mechanism underlying this association is still unknown.

According to Erin Van Blarigan,Sc.D., assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Fransico, studies conducted in the past have highlighted that men with prostate tumors with regular shaped blood vessels have a favourable prognosis when compared to the men with prostate cancer with irregular shaped blood vessels. But in this study it was seen brisk walking leads to regular shaped blood vessels in prostate tumors.

"Our findings suggest a possible mechanism by which exercise may improve outcomes in men with prostate cancer," continued Van Blarigan. "Although data from randomized, controlled trials are needed before we can conclude that exercise causes a change in vessel regularity or clinical outcomes in men with prostate cancer, our study support the growing evidence of the benefits of exercise, such as brisk walking, for men with prostate cancer."

The Health Professionals Follow-up Study that started in 1986 allows healthcare researchers to find how nutrition and lifestyle factors influence the occurrence of chronic illness such as cancer and other heart disease. Every two years, participants are asked to complete questionnaire that ask about diseases, physical activity levels, smoking history and medication. Every four years, participants complete questionnaire on dietary habits.

To investigate whether physical activity before being diagnosed with prostate cancer was linked with prostate tumor blood vessel regularity, the researchers observed 572 men who were a part of the Health Professionals Follow up Study. Based on the answers given in the questionnaire, the prediagnostic physical activity level was estimated. With the help of the semiautomated image analysis of the tumor samples, the researchers established the blood vessel regularity. The blood vessel that was in a perfect circle was treated as an ideal shape and was scored 1. Greater the values, less regular were the blood vessel.

The researchers noticed that men who had fast walking pace i.e. 3 to 3-5 miles per hour before being diagnosed with the cancer had 8 percent more regularly shaped blood vessels when compared to men with slowest walking pace of 1.5-5 miles per hour.

"Our study, which provides a potential explanation by which exercise may improve outcomes in men with prostate cancer, highlights the value of multidisciplinary collaborations between laboratory, clinical, and population scientists to explore new pathways by which lifestyle factors or other exposures may affect disease," said Van Blarigan. "It is reasonable to hypothesize that the same explanation could exist for the beneficial effects of exercise in other cancers, and it would be interesting to examine this in future studies."