SYDNEY, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- A new research led by Australia's Edith Cowan University (ECU) has revealed how critically important exercise can be even for people with advanced cancer.
Researchers from ECU's Exercise Medicine Research Institute (EMRI) said their previous work has shown that men with advanced prostate cancer can change the chemical environment of their body over six months of exercise training and generate increased levels of proteins called "myokines" to suppress cancer cell growth.
The study, published in Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases and released on Wednesday, revealed that a single bout of vigorous exercise can elevate myokines even further and induce additional cancer suppression.
The study recruited nine patients with late-stage prostate cancer and collected their blood serum immediately before and after 34 minutes of high-intensity exercise, and then again 30 minutes post-workout.
The results found that serum obtained immediately after the exercise contained elevated levels of anti-cancer myokines, resulting in suppressed growth of cancer cells in vitro by around 17 percent.
Serum myokine levels and cancer suppression returned to baseline after 30 minutes.
"This is helping us to understand why patients with cancer who exercise exhibit slower disease progression and survive for longer," said EMRI researcher and study supervisor Professor Rob Newton.
"These patients are palliative, so there is no cure and they will eventually succumb - however, there is evidence that exercise will extend survival and the increased myokine levels explored in our recent paper is a prime mechanism," said Newton.
According to Newton, though the optimal dose of exercise is not yet known, it is likely to be 20-plus minutes each day and must include resistance training to grow muscles and stimulate the myokine production. ■