The Anti-Cancer Benefits of Strength Training
What is strength training and why is it important for cancer prevention
Strength training involves the performance of physical exercises that are designed to improve strength and endurance. It makes you stronger and fitter and improves your overall health.
Strength training can be defined as exercise that is designed to increase lean muscle tissue, improve structural strength, decrease excess body fat, increase endurance, and provide several additional physical and psychological benefits.
Strength training is important for cancer prevention due to the fact that strength training reduces the risk of cancer by 31%. Recently researchers have noted that strength training should be prescribed as a treatment for many chronic diseases.
When we lift weights, our muscles secrete a magic little protein called a myokine. "Myokines are produced, expressed, and released by muscle fibers under contraction and exert both local and pleiotropic effects."
Strength training has been shown to reduce inflammation and help with the recovery from chemotherapy in patients with breast cancer, colon cancer, lymphoma, Hodgkin disease, osteosarcoma, and lung cancer.
Strength training can also help you control your weight and reduce cancer risk. Strength training has been shown to increase strength, speed-strength, power strength, muscle tone, lean muscle tissue, and muscle strength.
What are the benefits of strength training
There are many benefits to strength training including improved muscle tone, balance, stability, increased bone density, and immune health. It is also a good way to regulate eating habits due to the increased strength and endurance strength training provides. What strength training has been shown to do:
-Improve strength and endurance
-Increase lean muscle mass
-Increase strength and power
-Increase bone health
-Improve cardiovascular health
-Decrease body fat
-Weight loss and weight control
-reduce cancer risk
-Increase mood and self-esteem
How does strength training help with cancer prevention/reduction?
Strength training is important for cancer prevention due to the fact that research shows that it suppresses cancer cell growth. Research shows that a single HIIT session can have immediate effects in reducing the growth of cancer cells in colon cancer survivors, and another study found that lifting weights as little as two times per week can reduce your chances of dying from cancer by 31 percent.
How does strength training suppress cancer cell growth?
Strength training produces proteins called myokines. A new study shows that those myokines are capable of both suppressing cancer tumor growth and actively leading the charge against fighting cancer cells. The study by Edith Cowan University and published in the scientific journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise may revolutionize cancer treatment in the not-so-distant future.
The Magic of Myokines
When your muscles contract during a strength training session myokines are released. While myokines themselves can not kill cancer cells, they are very adept at signaling cancer cells to grow slower, and most importantly they are able to recruit and orchestrate our immune system to kill cancer. Overall, myokines have an anti-inflammatory effect on the body, increase bone density, boost metabolism, regulate immune function, sustainably promote fat burning, improve liver function and make our blood vessels more efficient and stretchy. At the same myokines can reduce the risk of diseases such as diabetes, dementia, and osteoporosis.
Strength training has an anti-inflammatory effect on the body.
Strength training has been shown to reduce inflammation and help with the recovery from chemotherapy in patients with breast cancer, colon cancer, lymphoma, Hodgkin disease, osteosarcoma, and lung cancer. Although anti-inflammatory cytokine levels rise initially after strength training, they quickly come back to normal levels and cumulatively the body experiences a decrease in inflammatory markers.
In fact, researchers are looking at ways to use strength training can be used as a way to provide anti-inflammatory effects to patients with chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation occurs when the body’s immune cells attack healthy tissue by mistake.
Strength training also helps with anti-inflammatory cytokine levels and reduces chronic inflammation and the chance of cancer recurrence and metastasis.
Strength training has been shown to decrease the amount of tumor necrosis factor alpha, IL-6, and IL-1β. This is important because these cytokines play a role in cancer growth or inflammation. The less of these there is, the better off you are health-wise.
Strength Training Helps Cancer Patients in other ways too.
Strength training has been shown to reduce inflammation and help with the recovery from chemotherapy in patients with breast cancer, colon cancer, lymphoma, Hodgkin disease, osteosarcoma, and lung cancer.
Resistance training (RT) reduces fatigue and improves physical function and quality of life (QOL) in breast cancer survivors. Strength training can improve QOL in cancer patients by increasing their body image, sense of well-being and decreasing fatigue.
Strength training has been shown to reduce the chance of cancer recurrence and metastasis. "Along with the cancer-preventive benefit, there is emerging evidence that exercise may actually improve survival in patients who have already developed CRC. Physical activity significantly decreased cancer recurrence and CRC-related deaths"
Strength training has anti-inflammatory cytokine levels which help with anti-inflammatory cytokines. Strength training also reduces health care costs and improves physician productivity.
Further, cancer treatments, like androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), can lead to muscle loss and a high likelihood of gaining weight. So, a cancer patient being treated with ADT can conceivably retain some muscle, prevent putting on extra pounds, and help kill cancer cells all by simply breaking a sweat.
If I have been diagnosed with cancer should I exercise?
Chances are if you know someone who has cancer and ask whether they should exercise the answer would be "I don't know" or "no". But in truth, the science is behind the benefits of exercising during treatment The studies show exercise can help improve survival rates for people with breast, colon, and prostate cancer — as well as improve the quality of life of those people in terms of reducing side effects of cancer treatment.
If you have been diagnosed with cancer, strength training is your ally in recovery. Are you ready to reclaim your health? Sign up for a FREE Phone Consult, FREE Group Strength Training Session, or a 1-on-1 Strength Training Intro Session.
Resources
Strength Training for Cancer Prevention: A Systematic Review of the Literature by Ryan L. Sisk, PhD
Physical activity and survival of colorectal cancer patients: a population-based study from Germany