For years, scientists have known that exercise can improve the quality of life for cancer patients and ease the side effects of chemotherapy. But now, for the first time, a new study has provided strong evidence that exercise can also improve survival rates for cancer patients — positioning physical activity as an actual part of cancer treatment.
The Challenge Study: 17 Years of Research
The Challenge study, led by the Canadian Cancer Trials Group, was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago. This groundbreaking trial sought to answer a simple but vital question: Can exercise function as a treatment for cancer alongside surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation?
Between 2009 and 2024, researchers followed 889 high-risk patients with stage II and III colon cancer — stages where the cancer has grown into the wall of the colon and possibly spread to nearby lymph nodes but not to distant parts of the body. After receiving standard treatments of surgery and chemotherapy, half of the participants were assigned to a supervised, structured exercise program, while the other half received only educational materials about physical activity.
Exercise as a Critical Part of Treatment
The exercise program focused on increasing recreational aerobic activity. Over a period of three years, participants in the exercise group engaged in 45–60 minutes of brisk walking or 25–30 minutes of moderate jogging three to four times per week.
After eight years of follow-up, the results were striking:
- The overall survival rate was 90% for those who participated in supervised aerobic exercise.
- The survival rate was 83% for those who only received educational materials.
- The risk of death was 37% lower in the exercise group, which translated to seven fewer deaths per 100 patients treated.
“Our study shows that exercise is no longer just a quality-of-life intervention—it’s a treatment for colon cancer that should be made available to all patients,” said Kerry Courneya, lead researcher and Chair in Physical Activity and Cancer Research at the University of Alberta.
Chris Booth, another lead investigator, emphasized that while exercise doesn’t replace surgery or chemotherapy, it should be considered a new, essential component of cancer care.
Personalized Exercise Prescriptions
Participants in the exercise group worked with physical therapists or kinesiologists to choose a moderate-intensity exercise plan tailored to their abilities and preferences. This personalized approach proved critical to maintaining patient motivation and long-term adherence.
“It made all the difference to have someone guiding me and regularly checking in,” said Terri Swain-Collins, a participant in the trial.
A New Standard of Care?
Mikel Izquierdo, Professor of Health Sciences at the Public University of Navarra, called the study a “turning point” in cancer treatment. As a randomized controlled trial, the study offers the strongest level of evidence, showing a clear causal link between exercise and improved cancer survival.
“This level of evidence is enough to update clinical guidelines and officially introduce exercise as part of cancer therapy,” Izquierdo said. However, he stressed that like any medical treatment, exercise must be personalized and carefully dosed.
Izquierdo also raised an important point: if such an effective intervention had been discovered in pill form, it would be hailed as a revolutionary drug. Now, healthcare systems must invest in qualified professionals and infrastructure to deliver these “metabolic immunotherapy” programs to patients.
A Growing Body of Evidence
Over recent years, the scientific community has accumulated more and more evidence of exercise’s benefits for cancer patients. Studies have shown that just 30 minutes of aerobic activity three times a week can significantly reduce anxiety and depression. Other programs combining aerobic and resistance training have been shown to combat fatigue caused by both cancer itself and its treatments.
Until now, many of these studies were not designed to directly test exercise as a medicine against cancer. However, correlations between regular physical activity and improved survival rates have already been observed in patients with colon, prostate, and breast cancers.
The Challenge study now opens the door to a new generation of cancer treatments that are safe, highly effective, and come with minimal side effects. Still, applying these findings on a large scale will require extensive training, system-wide changes, and dedicated healthcare personnel.
Conclusion
The findings of the Challenge study could reshape cancer care as we know it. With exercise proving to be as powerful as some conventional treatments in improving survival rates, oncologists, healthcare providers, and policymakers will need to rethink how cancer treatment plans are structured — potentially making supervised exercise a standard part of therapy for patients worldwide.