Exercise for lower prostate cancer risk, less aggressive disease

1 November 2009

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A moderate amount of exercise most days of the week may contribute to a lower risk of prostate cancer, and lower grade tumours among those men who are diagnosed with the disease following biopsy, say researchers at Duke University Medical Center and the Durham Veterans Affairs Hospital.

The finding, appearing online in the Journal of Urology, adds more fuel to the ongoing debate over whether exercise offers any benefit at all among men seeking to prevent prostate cancer.

"There have been dozens of studies about the value of exercise in lowering risk of prostate cancer, and some of them quite large, but the bottom line is that they've left us with mixed signals," says Stephen Freedland, MD, a urologist at Duke and the Durham VA and the senior author of the paper.

In examining 190 men who underwent prostate biopsy at the Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, investigators found that men who regularly engaged in moderate activity – anything equivalent to walking at a moderate pace for several hours per week – were significantly less likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer, and if they were, they were less likely to have aggressive disease, defined as a tumour with a Gleason score equal to or greater than 7.

They assessed participants' level of exercise with a questionnaire prior to the biopsy. The survey included questions about the frequency, duration and intensity of any exercise during a typical week. The type of activity was designated either mild (easy walking, yoga), moderate (brisk walking, tennis), or strenuous (running, vigorous swimming).

Most of the men fell far short of the American Heart Association guidelines for the minimal amount of exercise needed per week.

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