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A supervised, coached exercise programme for three years after bowel cancer treatment cut recurrence and death in a large randomised trial. It is the first lifestyle intervention proven to work like an adjuvant drug.
The CHALLENGE trial (CCTG CO.21, NEJM 2025) randomised 889 patients with resected stage III or high-risk stage II colon cancer after adjuvant chemotherapy to a three-year structured exercise programme with behavioural support, or health-education materials. Disease-free survival improved (5-year 80.3% vs 73.9%, HR 0.72) and so did overall survival (8-year 90.3% vs 83.2%, HR 0.63). The target was an increase of about 10 MET-hours per week, roughly 45 minutes of brisk walking most days. This is level-1 evidence in one disease; whether it generalises to breast, prostate and lung cancer is being tested, and the delivery model (physical activity consultants, supervised sessions tapering over years) is the implementation problem.
Regular aerobic activity lowers circulating insulin, IGF-1 and inflammatory cytokines, improves body composition and immune surveillance, and may reduce the fitness of dormant disseminated tumour cells. Behavioural coaching sustains adherence long enough for these to matter.
Query for this technology: (TITLE:"Structured exercise programmes after curative treatment" OR ABSTRACT:"Structured exercise programmes after curative treatment") AND (cancer OR tumor OR tumour OR oncology OR carcinoma OR lymphoma OR leukemia OR leukaemia OR myeloma OR sarcoma OR melanoma OR glioma). Results are unfiltered search hits about Structured exercise programmes after curative treatment, not a curated reading list.
Shares Pay for supervised exercise the way we pay for drugs, Structured exercise prescribed like a drug in all curative-intent cancer care, CHALLENGE (CCTG CO.21), What actually works after treatment.
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Shares Energy balance, Dietitian-led weight-loss programmes in HR-positive breast cancer, Obesity-related cancers (IARC list of 13), Diet, exercise and lifestyle roadmap: causes established → interventions that disappointed → exercise proven as treatment.
Shares Time-restricted eating in cancer prevention and survivorship, Energy balance, Dietitian-led weight-loss programmes in HR-positive breast cancer, Diet, exercise and lifestyle roadmap: causes established → interventions that disappointed → exercise proven as treatment.
Shares Treat insomnia in survivors and measure whether the cancer notices, What actually works after treatment, Diet, exercise and lifestyle roadmap: causes established → interventions that disappointed → exercise proven as treatment, Exercise & lifestyle oncology.
Shares Exercise is the best-evidenced thing on this front, and most survivors are not doing it, Walking, gripping and standing up: the tests that take five minutes, The exercise prescription after cancer: the dose the guidelines state, Exercise & lifestyle oncology.