Men diagnosed with prostate cancer may do better if they regularly take brisk walks for at least three hours a week, research shows.

Prostate cancer affects more than 2.2 million American men. Yet despite this, we know very little about what causes it, or whether there’s much you can do to avoid it.

Recently, researchers discovered that men who continue to exercise vigorously after being diagnosed with prostate cancer may live longer than those who don’t. But they were suspicious of the result—did it just mean that men who were sicker with prostate cancer were stopping their exercise regimen due to their illness?

They re-ran the study, looking at all types of cancer progression, including things like raised PSA levels, which don’t actually cause symptoms. They hoped this would give a better idea about whether exercise really did make a difference.

They found that men who were walking at a speed of three miles an hour or more, for at least three hours a week, were less likely to see their cancer progress. Other types of vigorous exercise may also have had an effect, but too few men did other types to be sure.

However, it didn’t work for all men. Those diagnosed with a higher-grade cancer (likely more aggressive, as measured by Gleason score) saw no benefit from walking.

Studies like this can’t completely rule out other factors that could have affected the results, so they can’t prove that brisk walking actually prevented the prostate cancer from progressing. However, the researchers did a good job of using statistical tests to rule out a lot of obvious factors, and the results are likely to be fairly reliable.

Bottom line: We can’t promise that brisk walking improves your chances if you are diagnosed with prostate cancer. However, if you are able to walk briskly several times a week, it’s unlikely to do any harm and may improve your general health, as well as your chances of beating prostate cancer.

Source
Physical activity after diagnosis and risk of prostate cancer progression: data from the Cancer of the Prostate Strategic Urologic Research Endeavor Cancer Research

—Anna Sayburn, BMJ Group

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