Pancreatic cancer is notoriously deadly, with 89 percent of patients dying within five years of their diagnosis. Treatment is difficult; the tumor’s microenvironment suppresses the immune response, and oftentimes the disease goes undetected until it has reached an advanced stage. However, exercise seems to help those who are able to get up and walk around, experts tell The Scientist, and new research seems to have uncovered why. The study reinforces the notion that exercise, when feasible, might be a worthwhile component of cancer patients’ care.
In a Cancer Cell paper published June 2, researchers report that mice with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma that exercised regularly survived for longer and were healthier than those that did not, thanks to both an enhanced antitumor immune response and increased sensitivity to chemotherapy. While the link between exercise and improved disease outcomes has been demonstrated in human pancreatic cancer patients, the new study is the ...
