Cancer can be a life-threatening disease that can develop in almost any part of the body. According to the American Cancer Society and the National Institutes of Health, roughly 1.3 million Americans were diagnosed with some variety of cancer in 2016 and over 410,000 people lost their lives to the disease. While survival rates are improving for most forms of cancer, it revolves around catching the spread early enough and often requires harsh medications (such as chemotherapy) or surgery to remove the cancerous tumors before they spread any further.
Fortunately, it is also a hot topic for research and study across the world and a recent study of over 100 published research studies in medical journals shows that there are ways to not only improve survival rate when diagnosed with cancer, but also ways to decrease the rate of cancer developing in the first place. Studies indicate that regularly performing moderate physical activity (roughly the same effort as mowing the lawn) for 1 hour a day can reduce the risk of colon cancer in men 30-40% and breast cancer in women 20-30% as well as a 26-40% reduced risk of death for women currently with breast cancer.
Overall throughout the studies it was shown that cancer patients who exercised at this moderate level of intensity at least 3-5 hours a week had reduced their risk of death from cancer, meaning that regular exercise is beneficial for both preventing cancer from developing and reducing mortality rates even if it has already been diagnosed.
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