Doctors often advise cancer patients to rest -- in part because the treatments for cancer make them tired anyway but a study published this week suggests a little walking may do a lot of good.

Even women taking harsh chemotherapy drugs that could damage their hearts benefited from walking, a team at the Ottawa Regional Cancer Centre found.

"One of the concerns of the medical community was that these women would be too unwell to do it and wouldn't want to do it," Dr. Roanne Segal, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

"We underestimated what these women can do."

Segal and colleagues studied 123 breast cancer patients. All were getting treatment for early-stage breast cancer -- chemotherapy, hormonal treatments or radiation.

One third of them kept up a regular exercise program, walking for an hour on their own three to five times a week. They were compared to patients who did supervised walks in the center -- either on a treadmill or a track -- and patients who rested.

After six months, the walkers had significantly improved their heart conditioning and overall function, the researchers reported in the February issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Those who walked in the center did better but less well than those who walked on their own.

Patients who followed the traditional medical advice of little or no exercise during cancer treatment saw their physical conditions deteriorate, Segal's team reported.

SAFE DESPITE HARSH CHEMOTHERAPY

Most of the patients were taking adriamycin, a cancer chemotherapy drug that can have side effects on the heart.

"The concern of the medical community was, given this drug's potential effects on the heart muscle, would there be medical effects. What we showed was that it was quite safe," Segal said.

Patients who took tamoxifen, which affects the hormones and can cause weight gain, lost an average of two to eight pounds (1 kg to 4 kg), Segal found.

"The average weight gain on tamoxifen is about 20 pounds (9 kg)," Segal said. "Many women are quite perturbed about the weight gain but over and above that, there are health reasons why you wouldn't want to gain that weight."

Studies show that women who gain less weight on tamoxifen actually fight off breast cancer better, Segal said.

"Numerous studies have suggested that exercise (including light- to moderate-intensity walking programs) has many benefits for people with cancer," the National Cancer Institute said in a statement on exercise.

"Such benefits include improved physical energy, and/or enhanced functional capacity, with improvement in quality of life, and improvements in many aspects of psychological state (such as improved outlook and sense of well being, enhanced sense of commitment and the ability to meet the challenges of cancer and cancer treatment)."

Segal said the patients in her study really enjoyed the exercise, and this could explain why those who walked on their own did better. "We were slowing down many of the women in the center, trying to get them to adhere to the exercise program," she said. "At home they frequently told us they wanted to do more and they did more."

She said 70 percent of the patients stuck with the six-month program. "If you contrast that to Joe Q. Public going to a fitness center, at best you get a 30 to 50 percent adherence rate," she said. "We weren't pushing them."

(From ChinaDaily)