Exercise May Slow Prostate Cancer

The findings are preliminary, but they are also provocative: research conducted at the University of California at San Francisco suggests that men who do vigorous exercise three times a week have an increase in the expression of certain genes that are known to suppress tumors, including some breast cancer tumors that similar to prostate cancer tumors. HealthDay reports that when researchers compared prostate genes from 70 men with low-risk prostate cancer to normal prostate genes from 70 men they found 184 genes that were differently expressed in men who did activities such as jogging, tennis or swimming for at least three hours a week, compared with genes in men who did less exercise. The exercisers also had increased expression of genes involved in DNA repair. HealthDay reports that earlier research by the same team revealed links between vigorous activity and a lowered risk of prostate cancer progression and death. One of those studies found that men with prostate cancer who did three or more hours a week of vigorous activity had a 60 percent lower risk of death from prostate cancer, compared to men who participated in less than one hour per week of vigorous physical activity. Another showed that men who walked three miles per hour or faster had about half the risk of prostate cancer progression of men who walked at two miles per hour or less. Read more from HealthDay.