Health experts have known for some time that regular exercise reduces colon cancer risk. Even more exciting is the idea that it's never too late to reap these benefits. For colon cancer survivors, exercise may be one key for keeping the disease from returning.
Colon Cancer Survivors Need to Move Too
The latest research supports the notion that being physically active after colon cancer diagnosis truly is worth the effort. Using information gathered from the long-running Health Professionals Follow-up Study, researchers at Harvard have confirmed that regular exercise greatly reduces risk of colon cancer recurrence.
Men with a history of stage I to stage III colorectal cancer who engaged in an average of 27 metabolic equivalent-hours (MET-hours) of exercise per week, reduced risk of colon cancer recurrence by 53%. This means that something as simple as a few good sweat sessions per week can reduce the likelihood of getting cancer again by more than half!
This finding agrees with earlier research showing exercise reduces risk of recurrence in female colon cancer survivors. We now have good evidence that exercise reduces recurrence risk in both male and female colon cancer survivors.
What's a MET?
Research on exercise uses a measure called a metabolic equivelent, or MET, to keep track of physical activity performed by study participants. One MET refers to the amount of oxygen you consume and the number of calories you burn at rest. If you are exercising at a level of 7 METs, this means that you are working about 7 times as hard as you would be at rest.
Exercising at a level of 7 METs means you are burning 7 times the calories you normally burn at rest. You are consuming about 7 times the amount of oxygen as you would at rest as well.
The Healthful Life Project of the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) provides a detailed chart of the METs per hour of typical activities such as walking, jogging, and playing tennis. The chart also provides sample calculations for determining your MET-hours per week.
Getting the Go Ahead and Getting Started
If you want to add exercise into your health and wellness routine, talk to your doctor. Make sure you are OK to begin or increase a physical activity program. Once you have clearance from your doctor, start slow and work up to more vigorous and longer physical activity over time.
For example, if you are starting from a baseline of no regular exercise, you may want to aim for 15 minutes of brisk walking 3-5 times per week. After 3 weeks or so, begin to add a few minutes to each session. Most exercise experts agree that it's more important to increase the duration of exercise first, before increasing intensity.
Meet Your MET Goals
Your goal is to get in as many MET-hours per week as you can, up to about 25-30 total METs. As an example, taking a one-hour brisk walk each day will get you to about 25 METs.
What if you can't or don't want to exercise this much? Not to worry: Any exercise that you get above a baseline of about 3 MET-hours per week, which is very little activity, will improve your health.
The research on exercise and colon cancer survival shows that there is a "dose-response" relationship between exercise and lower risk. This means that if you exercise a little, you reduce your risk of recurrence a little. If you exercise a moderate amount, you reduce your risk a moderate amount, and so forth. If you can squeeze in 8, 10, or 20 MET-hours worth of exercise per week, you will reap benefits and you will reduce risk of recurrence. Any activity is better than none.
Keeping it in Perspective
It can be inspiring to learn about how you can take control of your health and reduce your risk of colon cancer recurrence, but don't get too caught up in the numbers. For many people, tracking each and every minute of exercise or calculating MET-hours would be a chore. It would take all the enjoyment out of being active and healthy. There is no need to do this.
Looking at the MET-hours of different activities will just give you a general idea of goals and what to aim for. Focus on activities you enjoy, do them regularly, and you'll be on your way to lower colon cancer risk, even if you've already had this disease.
