{"id":3832,"date":"2008-08-23T04:15:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-23T04:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=3832"},"modified":"2025-09-30T01:05:43","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T01:05:43","slug":"exercise-and-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=3832","title":{"rendered":"Exercise and cancer treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"

As people who read my blog back when I was undergoing chemotherapy, and during my Sloan Kettering stay know, I kept going to the gym throughout my chemo. I even took dumbells into Sloan, and was allowed to use them (as well as this dinky faux bicycle exercise thing they gave me) before I had my stem cell transplant (day eight of my 20 day stay).<\/p>\n

I can't say for certain, but I would bet a large amount of my oncologists money that keeping exercising helped me avoid many of the side effects of chemotherapy and sped my relatively quick recovery. <\/p>\n

Here's am good feature article on the relationship between cancer treatment, recovery, and exercise, from the NY Times health and fitness section. There's a lot more to this article then what I've excerpted below the link, so if you have any interest at all, be sure to hit the link and read the whole thing.<\/p>\n

PERSONAL FITNESS; Said the Doctor to the Cancer Patient: Hit the Gym – New York Times<\/strong><\/font><\/a><\/p>\n

\n

''There used to be this understanding that if you're getting treatment you're supposed to be in your bed,'' said Pam Whitehead, an architect and survivor of uterine cancer who started the Triumph Fitness Program at gyms in Modesto and West Sacramento, Calif. <\/p>\n

In some cases, oncologists are prescribing exercise, gently prodding patients to tackle whatever activity they can manage: light walking, simple stretches, exercise with resistance bands. <\/p>\n

''I started in 1992 and that was really a time when not as many patients were exercising,'' said Dr. Alexandra Heerdt, a breast surgeon at Sloan-Kettering who is conducting a pilot program involving exercise. ''If a patient came to me back then and asked about exercise, I would have said there wasn't really any information.'' <\/p>\n

But now, she added, ''they have a lot of options.'' <\/p>\n

Wendy Rahn, 46, an associate professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, knows this well. After a double mastectomy, her shoulders hurt so much that she was often hunched in pain. Then, while researching her illness, she discovered a 2005 study on cancer and exercise. <\/p>\n

''The effects — what we call effect sizes in statistical research — were enormous,'' she said, ''and I was like 'How come no one is talking about this?' '' She had given up exercise a decade earlier, but the study inspired her to go back to the gym. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As people who read my blog back when I was undergoing chemotherapy, and during my Sloan Kettering stay know, I kept going to the gym throughout my chemo. I even took dumbells into Sloan, and was allowed to use them (as well as this dinky faux bicycle exercise thing they gave me) before I had my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-lymphoma-and-related-medical-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6395,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3832\/revisions\/6395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}