We have known for a while that cancer survivors who get at least 150-minutes of moderate intensity exercise each week (i.e. 30-minutes per day, 5-days per week) have much lower rates of cancer recurrence and death than those who are less active. A new study now suggests that even if you get your 150-minutes per week but are mostly inactive for the rest of the day, you may not be doing enough physical activity to anti-cancerize your tissues.
In this study, men who spent 11 or more hours a day in seated endeavors (i.e. writing, reading, couch surfing, driving) were 45% more likely to develop precancerous colon polyps than those who spent less than seven hours a day engaged in sedentary behavior.
This supports what I have been telling my patients regarding the importance of breaking up their day with multiple bouts of physical activity to make their tissues less conducive to cancer growth and recurrence.
Here’s a great tip:
I highly recommend the purchase of an activity monitoring device to help keep you informed of your daily activity (try to get 10,000 steps per day) and help motivate you to stay active throughout the day. The latest activity monitors (i.e. Jawbone Up, Fitbit Force) have programmable alarms (called “idle alerts”) that vibrate to let you know if you have been inactive for too much time. Get one.
