High-intensity aerobic exercise may greatly reduce risk for metastatic cancer
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High-intensity aerobic exercise may decrease the risk for cancer metastasis by 72%, according to a study conducted at Tel Aviv University.
The findings, published in Cancer Research, showed high-intensity exercise causes internal organs to absorb more glucose, thereby decreasing the energy available to the tumor.
“We were amazed to discover that it’s not just muscle that is going through a change when a person exercises — the lymph nodes, lungs and liver are also modified,” lead author Carmit Levy, PhD, professor in the department of human molecular genetics and biochemistry at Tel Aviv University’s Sackler School of Medicine, told Healio. “They become ‘super-metabolic’ organs; they’re absorbing a significantly increased amount of glucose compared with before physical activity.”
Levy spoke with Healio about her study’s unanticipated findings.
Healio: What inspired this study?
Levy: My lab has been studying the genetic and molecular aspects of cancer biology for more than a decade. One day, we were thinking about cancer metastasis and wondered why muscles are the least favorite site for metastasis. We looked at data on metastasis distribution in all kinds of cancers and saw that the lungs, the liver and the lymph nodes were the organs most likely to host metastases. Conversely, the muscles are the second biggest organ of the body but are still resistant to metastases. We wondered why — what is unique about muscle cells?
We know that muscle cells absorb lots of glucose and are very different in their shape and metabolism than other organs. We then shifted into thinking about physical activity and began collaborating with amazing scientists in that field. We started an experiment where we took mice and let them run for 5 minutes a day. This is a very acceptable protocol for aerobic physical activity.
We then checked their internal organs — we isolated the liver, lung, lymph nodes and muscle — and looked at what happened before and after physical activity. We discovered that these organs were absorbing significantly higher levels of glucose than those in the untrained animals. Cancer is very addicted to glucose cells, and when you expose cancer cells to this active environment they have lost the battle. The tissue is sucking up much more glucose, and the cancer can’t survive there and metastasize.
From there, we contacted our colleague Yftach Gepner, PhD, our fantastic collaborator. He is an epidemiologic researcher and he started looking into human data on this. He has 20 years of self-reported data on 3,000 people. He found that metastatic cancer is reduced by 72% in people who do physical activity for 120 to 150 minutes per week.
Healio: What do you think these findings mean in terms of the type and duration of exercise you would recommend?
Levy: According to Gepner, the recommendation is high-intensity exercise, meaning about 75 minutes per week divided into three sessions of 25 minutes. For each session, there is a 10-minute warmup, then 2 minutes of running, 2 minutes of walking, and so on. High intensity in this case means reaching the level where you cannot talk while you’re doing the exercise. It’s individual; each of us is going to take a different amount of time or effort to reach that level. So, it’s individual and it’s personal, but it’s something a person can easily do.
References:
- Aerobic activity can reduce the risk of metastatic cancer by 72% (press release). Available at: english.tau.ac.il/exercise_defeats_cancer_2022. Published Nov. 14, 2022. Accessed Jan. 3, 2023.
- Sheinboim D, et al. Cancer Res. 2022;doi:10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-22-0237.
For more information:
Carmit Levy, PhD, can be reached at Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel; email: carmitlevy@tauex.tau.ac.il.
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