If you’re visiting this blog, you likely know that getting at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity daily can lower your risk for cancer. But did you know about the emotional benefits that being active brings?

Getting up and moving also helps you blow off steam and manage stress, helps stave off depression, raises your self-esteem, boosts your energy, and helps you sleep better.

You’ll feel good, too: When we’re active, our brain releases endorphins, the body’s natural pain-killers.  Getting your blood moving helps improve the efficiency of your heart and lungs, and that’s a change you’ll feel every time you climb a set of stairs.

New guidelines from the American College of Sports Medicine urge cancer survivors, even those undergoing treatment, to get active. Research suggests that exercise can help survivors have more energy, improve their quality of life, and reduce risk of recurrence.

For ideas on how to build exercise into your day, take a look at AICR’s brochure “Moving More.”

cancer survivors, Energy, exercise, Physical Activity, Survivors Hide

Really fascinating talk by Johns Hopkins University researcher Peter L. Pedersen, PhD. Dr. Pedersen’s lab is studying a compound that disrupts cancer cells’ mitochondria, the energy-producing part of the cell. If cancer cells can’t produce energy – they die. But disrupting the mitochondria in cancer cells is challenging: there are two sources of energy in cancer cells – only one in healthy cells – and the trick is to target only the cancer cells, not the healthy one, said Dr. Pedersen.

Dr. Pedersen presented his lab’s findings on a compound called 3-BrPA for short, which appears to stop liver cancer cells from producing energy. 3-BrPA sneaks into a cancer cells’ mitochondria using the Trojan Horse strategy. It’s structurally similar to another compound (lactic acid) found in high amounts in cancer cells. The cancer cells mistakes 3-BrPA for lactic acid and transports it inside. There, 3-BrPA gets in the way of the two pathways in energy production.

In animal studies, Dr. Pedersen’s lab has had promising results. For example, out of 33 animals with advanced liver cancer: the tumors of the 19 animals treated with 3-BrPA all went away within 1 to 4 weeks; the tumors in the untreated animals continued to grow.

While exciting, right now this research is still only in the laboratory phase.

Bioenergy, Cancer Cells, Energy Hide