Your Do-It-Yourself “Prescription” for Cancer Survival
Just a few weeks ago, I told you about one of the most powerful ways to reduce your risk of cancer:
Walking. (Read about it here.)
But if you’ve already faced cancer, your number one priority is to make sure it never comes back.
Fortunately, you can do more than just hope that your routine cancer check-ups come back clear.
You can take action to significantly slash your risk of cancer recurrence—or even death—over the next eight years.
Here’s how…
Exercise can do more than prevent cancer from occurring in the first place. For cancer survivors, it can help keep the disease from coming back.
In a randomized controlled trial, 889 patients who had been treated for stage 3 colon cancer were divided into two groups. One group received health education materials, while the other group participated in a structured exercise program for three years.
Eight years later, the difference between the two groups was striking.
Compared to those who didn’t formally exercise, the exercise group had a 28 percent lower risk of developing new or recurring cancer and a 37 percent lower risk of dying during the eight years of follow-up.
Colon cancer typically comes back in about 30 percent of patients. And when it does, the chances of survival aren’t good.
This study shows that regular exercise can help you beat those odds.
If you’re having trouble sticking to an exercise routine, try changing your perspective on it.
Instead of calling it exercise, call it your prescription for cancer prevention and survival.
Then, be as diligent about taking this anti-cancer treatment as you would be when taking any other medication your doctor prescribes.
Best of all? It’s free, safe—and no drug comes close to what exercise can do.
P.S. Doctors pushing “BANNED” cancer tests 13 years later.
View Sources
Kerry S. Courneya, Ph.D., Janette L. Vardy, M.D., Ph.D., Christopher J. O’Callaghan, D.V.M., Ph.D., Structured Exercise after Adjuvant Chemotherapy for Colon Cancer, N Engl J Med 2025;393:13-25, DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2502760, VOL. 393 NO.
