PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Mayo study: Exercise can help cancer patients, but few oncologists suggest it

2012-08-29
(Press-News.org) ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Numerous studies have shown the powerful effect that exercise can have on cancer care and recovery. For patients who have gone through breast or colon cancer treatment, regular exercise has been found to reduce recurrence of the disease by up to 50 percent. But many cancer patients are reluctant to exercise, and few discuss it with their oncologists, according to a Mayo Clinic study published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.

"As doctors, we often tell patients that exercise is important, but to this point, nobody had studied what patients know about exercise, how they feel about it and what tends to get in the way," says lead author Andrea Cheville, M.D., of Mayo Clinic's Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

The study is part of a series of investigations looking at exercise habits among cancer patients. Researchers found that patients who exercised regularly before their diagnosis were more likely to exercise than those who had not. Many patients considered daily activities, such as gardening, sufficient exercise.

"There was a real sense of 'What I do every day, that's my exercise,'" says Dr. Cheville, noting that most patients didn't realize daily activities tend to require minimal effort. "Most were not aware that inactivity can contribute to weakening of the body and greater vulnerability to problems, including symptoms of cancer."

In addition, researchers found that patients took exercise advice most seriously when it came directly from their oncologists, but none of those studied had discussed it with them.

"Generally, patients are not being given concrete advice about exercise to help them maintain functionality and to improve their outcomes," Dr. Cheville says.

Exercise can improve patients' mobility, enable them to enjoy activities and keep them from becoming isolated in their homes. It can contribute to overall feelings of strength and physical safety, ease cancer-related fatigue and improve sleep. The researchers plan to investigate how to make the message about exercise meaningful to patients to optimize symptom relief and enhance recovery.

###The study was funded by a grant from the Fraternal Order of Eagles. Other authors include Ann Marie Dose, Ph.D.; Jeffrey Basford, M.D.; Ph.D., and Lori Rhudy, Ph.D.; all of Mayo Clinic.

About Mayo Clinic Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit worldwide leader in medical care, research and education for people from all walks of life. For more information, visit http://www.mayoclinic.org/about and www.mayoclinic.org/news.


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Why retire later?

2012-08-29
ANN ARBOR, Mich.---What if every U.S. worker got an automatic 10 percent pay raise at age 55? According to a new University of Michigan study, most people would work quite a bit longer to enjoy the extra income before they retired. By eliminating social security payroll taxes starting when workers are 55-years old, the study shows that take-home pay would jump by 10.6 percent and they would work 1.5 years longer on average, paying more income taxes and helping to reduce the Federal deficit. "People are living longer, healthier lives, and so far have opted to take most ...

Evaluate children's stress after natural disasters

2012-08-29
CORAL GABLES, FL (August 28, 2012) -- As Hurricane Isaac nears the Gulf Coast, one may wonder what the impact of natural disasters are on children. Who is most at risk for persistent stress reactions? How can such youth be identified and assisted in the aftermath of a destructive storm? Dr. Annette M. La Greca, a professor of psychology and pediatrics at the University of Miami, and her colleagues, have been studying children's disaster reactions following Hurricanes Andrew (1992), Charley (2004) and Ike (2008). Recent findings from Hurricane Ike shed light on these questions ...

Kindergarten readiness: Are shy kids at an academic disadvantage?

2012-08-29
CORAL GABLES, FL (August 28, 2012)—Parents of young children hope for a successful kindergarten experience that will set their youngsters on the right path of their educational journey. Some worry about their kids not adapting to the school environment, particularly when the children are talkative and overactive. Yet, a new study by the University of Miami (UM) shows that overly shy preschool children are at greater academic risk than their chatty and boisterous peers. The study is one of the first to follow the social and academic progress of children throughout the preschool ...

Pretend play may not be as crucial to child development as believed, new study shows

2012-08-29
Pretend play can be fun for preschool children, but a new University of Virginia study, published in a recent online edition of the journal Psychological Bulletin, finds that it is not as crucial to a child's development as currently believed. Pretend play is any play a child engages in, alone, with playmates, or with adults, that involves uses of the imagination to create a fantasy world or situation, such as making toy cars go "vrrooooom" or making dolls talk. Based on a number of key studies over four decades, pretend play is widely considered by psychologists – and ...

URMC researchers connect new genetic signature to leukemia

2012-08-29
University of Rochester Medical Center scientists believe they are the first to identify genes that underlie the growth of primitive leukemia stem cells, and then to use the new genetic signature to identify currently available drugs that selectively target the rogue cells. Although it is too early to attach significance to the drug candidates, two possible matches popped up: A drug in development for breast cancer (not approved by the Food and Drug Administration), and another experimental agent that, coincidentally, had been identified earlier by a URMC laboratory as ...

Diagnosis often missed for Hispanic children with developmental delay, autism

2012-08-29
This press release is available in Spanish.(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Hispanic children often have undiagnosed developmental delays and large numbers of both Hispanic and non-Hispanic children who first were thought to have developmental delay actually had autism, researchers affiliated with the UC Davis MIND Institute have found. The study, one of the largest to date to compare development in Hispanic and non-Hispanic children, is published in the journal Autism. The results lead the study authors to recommend increased public health efforts to improve awareness, especially ...

Protein found to regulate red blood cell size and number

2012-08-29
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (August 28, 2012) –The adult human circulatory system contains between 20 and 30 trillion red blood cells (RBCs), the precise size and number of which can vary from person to person. Some people may have fewer, but larger RBCs, while others may have a larger number of smaller RBCs. Although these differences in size and number may seem inconsequential, they raise an important question: Just what controls these characteristics of RBCs? This question is particularly relevant for the roughly one-quarter of the population that suffers from anemia, which ...

Beliefs drive investors more than preferences, study finds

2012-08-29
COLUMBUS, Ohio - If experts thought they knew anything about individual investors, it was this: their emotions lead them to sell winning stocks too soon and hold on to losers too long. But new research casts doubt on this widely held theory that individual investors' decisions are driven mainly by their feelings toward losses and gains. In an innovative study, researchers found evidence that individual investors' decisions are primarily motivated by their beliefs about a stock's future. "The story is not about whether an investor hates losing or loves gains – it's not ...

Magnetic vortex reveals key to spintronic speed limit

Magnetic vortex reveals key to spintronic speed limit
2012-08-29
UPTON,NY -- The evolution of digital electronics is a story of miniaturization - each generation of circuitry requires less space and energy to perform the same tasks. But even as high-speed processors move into handheld smart phones, current data storage technology has a functional limit: magnetically stored digital information becomes unstable when too tightly packed. The answer to maintaining the breath-taking pace of our ongoing computer revolution may be the denser, faster, and smarter technology of spintronics. Spintronic devices use electron spin, a subtle quantum ...

Male snails babysit for other dads

Male snails babysit for other dads
2012-08-29
Pity the male of the marine whelk, Solenosteira macrospira. He does all the work of raising the young, from egg-laying to hatching — even though few of the baby snails are his own. The surprising new finding by researchers at the University of California, Davis, puts S. macrospira in a small club of reproductive outliers characterized by male-only child care. Throw in extensive promiscuity and sibling cannibalism, and the species has one of the most extreme life histories in the animal kingdom. The family secrets of the snail, which lives in tidal mudflats off Baja ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

QUT scientists create material to turn waste heat into clean power

Major new report sets out how to tackle the ‘profound and lasting impact’ of COVID-19 on cardiovascular health

Cosmic crime scene: White dwarf found devouring Pluto-like icy world

Major report tackles Covid’s cardiovascular crisis head-on

A third of licensed GPs in England not working in NHS general practice

ChatGPT “thought on the fly” when put through Ancient Greek maths puzzle

Engineers uncover why tiny particles form clusters in turbulent air

GLP-1RA drugs dramatically reduce death and cardiovascular risk in psoriasis patients

Psoriasis linked to increased risk of vision-threatening eye disease, study finds

Reprogramming obesity: New drug from Italian biotech aims to treat the underlying causes of obesity

Type 2 diabetes may accelerate development of multiple chronic diseases, particularly in the early stages, UK Biobank study suggests

Resistance training may improve nerve health, slow aging process, study shows

Common and inexpensive medicine halves the risk of recurrence in patients with colorectal cancer

SwRI-built instruments to monitor, provide advanced warning of space weather events

Breakthrough advances sodium-based battery design

New targeted radiation therapy shows near-complete response in rare sarcoma patients

Does physical frailty contribute to dementia?

Soccer headers and brain health: Study finds changes within folds of the brain

Decoding plants’ language of light

UNC Greensboro study finds ticks carrying Lyme disease moving into western NC

New implant restores blood pressure balance after spinal cord injury

New York City's medical specialist advantage may be an illusion, new NYU Tandon research shows

Could a local anesthetic that doesn’t impair motor function be within reach?

1 in 8 Italian cetacean strandings show evidence of fishery interactions, with bottlenose and striped dolphins most commonly affected, according to analysis across four decades of data and more than 5

In the wild, chimpanzees likely ingest the equivalent of several alcoholic drinks every day

Warming of 2°C intensifies Arctic carbon sink but weakens Alpine sink, study finds

Bronze and Iron Age cultures in the Middle East were committed to wine production

Indian adolescents are mostly starting their periods at an earlier age than 25 years ago

Temporary medical centers in Gaza known as "Medical Points" (MPs) treat an average of 117 people daily with only about 7 staff per MP

Rates of alcohol-induced deaths among the general population nearly doubled from 1999 to 2024

[Press-News.org] Mayo study: Exercise can help cancer patients, but few oncologists suggest it