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.”

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You likely know by now that being overweight or obese increases your risk for diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. In fact, AICR estimates that over 100,000 cancer cases a year are caused by carrying excess fat.

That’s a sobering statistic, and the latest numbers on childhood obesity suggest that number will keep growing. After all, children who are overweight or obese tend to grow into overweight and obese adults.

But you can help ensure a brighter, healthier future for your kids. How? By treating yourself right.

Think about it: Children model their parents’ behavior, so every time you prepare a healthy meal or make time for getting active, you’re instilling those same habits in your kids.

The Obesity Society recommends that parents keep only healthy foods in the house and choose the restaurants the family visits.

Anyone who’s unthinkingly polished off a bag of potato chips while watching their favorite program knows that eating in front of the TV encourages “passive overeating” – that’s why it’s a good idea to serve meals at the dinner table whenever you can.

Encourage kids to get and stay active any way they can. Planning family activities that revolve around walking, biking, hiking or swimming can help less active kids get their hearts pumping.

First Lady Michelle Obama has launched a nationwide campaign called Let’s Move! to help stop childhood obesity. The website’s got lots of ideas for getting kids interested in health and nutrition.

AICR has our own children’s website called the Taste Buddies, filled with games, quizzes and kid-friendly information to help kids learn that eating better and moving more can be fun.

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There are over 400 national parks in the United States that help preserve historic buildings and landscapes while creating recreation activities close to home. Volunteering at a national park can be rewarding both mentally and physically. Volunteers help maintain over 1,000 trails and historic landmarks including places like Pearl Harbor and the Martin Luther King Birthplace.

The June issue of AICR’s eNews shows volunteering at a park is a great way to get involved with your local history and to add physical activity to your schedule. AICR recommends 30 minutes of moderate daily activity to prevent cancer and it’s important to find an activity that you enjoy so you’ll stick with it.

There are other ways to volunteer outside if helping out at a national park isn’t for you. The recent oil spill in the Gulf coast region has produced a need for volunteers to help clean up the affected area and report the environmental impacts caused by the spill. National parks have been affected by this as well as other organizations helping to clean up the Gulf Bay. Some of these organizations you can volunteer at are the National Wildlife Federation and the Audubon Society. Their websites will contain more information on how to help.

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Yesterday, Mya posted about research exploring how physical activity plays a role in helping cancer survivors feel better.

Based on that growing body of research, the American College of Sports Medicine released the first ever guidelines for physical activity and cancer survivors yesterday at their annual meeting in Baltimore.  AICR is exhibiting at the conference, so I was able to catch the presentation on this topic.

The Number One Recommendation:  Cancer patients and survivors should engage in physical activity.   Basically, as much as possible follow the 2008 federal Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans:  at least 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity aerobic activity and 2 times per week resistance training.

The risk of not being active greatly outweighs risk that might occur from engaging in activity according to the panel that developed the guidelines.  The research showed improved quality of life, fitness, flexibility and greater physical functioning in patients and survivors who engaged in physical activity.

For trainers and  fitness professionals there are specific recommendations regarding doing individual assessments and tailoring programs for specific diagnoses.

But the strong message was to find a way to be active.

Read more about the guidelines here.

Check out AICR’s information on exercise for cancer survivors with tips on getting started and keeping it going.

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AICR’s expert report concluded that carrying excess body fat is a convincing cause of six different cancers (colorectal, postmenopausal breast, esophageal, endometrial, kidney and pancreatic) and a probable cause of gallbladder cancer as well.  That means that in the US alone, obesity is responsible for over 100,000 cancer cases every year.

And as obesity figures continue to rise, that number is likely to grow even larger.

How did we get here?

Last week, at the 3rd International Congress on Physical Activity and Public Health, many researchers presented data tracking recent trends in the amount of leisure-time physical activity we’re getting, nowadays. But one of the keynote speakers, Dr. William Leonard of Northwestern University, presented an intriguing talk that took the long view.

The very long view.

Like, hundreds of thousands of years long.

Dr. Leonard is an  anthropologist, you see.  He talked about how humans evolved, specifically how how changes in our diet and activity level changed our body type.

Basically, said Dr. Leonard, as our brains got bigger, they placed larger demands on our metabolism, and our diets became more nutrient- and calorie-dense to support them.

Leonard proposed that the recent and much-talked about uptick in the calorie-density of our foods over the past few decades (higher fat content, larger portion sizes) is simply an extension of what’s been happening to us, on an evolutionary scale, for millions of years.  But the difference is key: dietary changes that used to to take thousands and thousands of years to occur have happened within a single lifetime.

Even so, he suggested that we might be missing the real story by focusing so much on the increase in calories in our diets.  In fact, he notes, while calorie content of the diet in the developed world has increased since the fifties, that increase leveled off in the 80s.  Yet obesity rates continued, and continue, to rise.

To explain this, he suggests that it’s decreased calorie expenditure that plays a larger role in obesity than caloric intake.

Throughout our evolution, our caloric intake increased to match greater and greater needs we placed upon our bodies – hunting calorie-dense animals is more demanding than gathering low-calorie-dense crops. But this eon-old trend toward increased calorie-burning is now experiencing a dramatic reversal: Our jobs have become much more sedentary since the 80s and the advent of the computer.

Our bodies have evolved over millions of years to actively and effectively meet our caloric needs from the environment. But now we’re suddenly accelerating the trend toward more calories – and by changing the physical environment to make things easier, we’re reversing the evolutionary trend toward burning more calories.

The net effect: we’re upsetting an equilibrium our species has managed to maintain for thousands and thousands of years.

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A lot of this issue’s Cancer Research Update focuses on the benefits of physical activity for cancer prevention, which is a relatively new area of study.

It’s clear that being physically active helps us lose and/or control weight. Weight control is the obvious reason to be active, now that research shows excess body fat causes seven different cancers.

Less is known about exactly how physical activity helps fight cancer independent of weight.  Studies show that it does, but can physical activity reduce cancer risk regardless of the number on the scale?

To learn more, read the full story in CRU.

And if you want a mental health boost as well as a physical one, try exercising outside. A new study in Environmental Science & Technology found that just five minutes of “green exercise” per day improves mood and self -esteem. Green exercise is any activity that takes place outdoors, such as a backyard garden or walk in a park.

With warmer weather, there are precious few excuses not to add some fun activity into your day. AICR has plenty of “Moving More” strategies here. If you have a fitness tip of your own, please share.

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The reasons to make physical activity part of a daily routine just keep building. For one thing: there’s the evidence linking physical activity to reduced cancer risk. The latest incentive to get active comes from a new study that found exercise speeds learning and improves blood flow to the brain in monkeys.

Previous studies have linked improved learning to exercise in rodents; but this study examines this link in monkeys. The study is published in the journal Neuroscience; you can read the release here.

Physical activity can reduce cancer risk; can it make us learn better?

In the study, one group of monkeys was aerobically active – running on a treadmill for an hour each day, five days per week, for five months. Another group simply sat on the treadmill for the same amount of time.

Cognitive tests found that the exercising monkeys learned one task twice as quickly as the sedentary animals.

When it comes to exercise and cancer prevention, the link between physical activity and reducing cancer risk is clear. Regular activity acts with weight control – and excess body fat causes several different cancers – and also appears to have biological effects that lower cancer risk, such as strengthening the immune system.

Want to see if you are active enough? Take our quiz.

If you already incorporate physical activity into your day, how did you get into the habit? Any tips?

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If you had to fill out a survey of your week’s activity, would you include only those bouts of exercise at the gym or add in the dog walks? What about including darting around at the office or any heavy lifting you do at work?

Identifying people’s activity levels may not be as simple as asking them.

This week, a study came out that Mexican-Americans are the most active group in America, compared to non-Hispanic whites and African Americans. The results challenge previous findings and suggest that collecting physical activity information should include electronic devices, along with self-reports.

The study was published in the American Journal of Public Health; you can read the abstract here.

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Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign to eliminate childhood obesity in a generation could have a major impact on cancer rates when today’s children become adults.

AICR estimates that approximately 100,000 cancers occurring in the US every year are caused by excess body fat.  Add physical activity and a healthy diet to weight management, and we could prevent about one-third of the most common cancers.  And what better prevention strategy than helping children adopt healthier behaviors?

The campaign focuses on four factors: Healthy Choices, Healthier Schools, Physical Activity and Accessible and Affordable Healthy Food.  This combination of policy changes, health professional action and family involvement envisioned by the First Lady is an important step toward helping children live healthier lifestyles.  And healthier lives will lead to fewer children becoming obese and remaining obese as adults.

AICR’s major report, Policy and Action for Cancer Prevention addresses many of these same issues  as to how policy changes can influence the behaviors that affect cancer risk and other chronic disease.

What do you see happening in your community to help children lead healthier lifestyles?

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This month is American Heart Month and you’ve probably read a story on how to protect against cardiovascular disease (CVD). CVD is the leading cause of death in the United States; cancer is the second.

It’s a good thing then, that the lifestyle strategies recommended to prevent heart disease are strikingly similar to those of cancer prevention. In short: eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly and stay a healthy weight.

The latest issue of AICR’s Cancer Research Update examines the similarities – and difference – in the recommendations to reduce risk for heart disease and cancer.

You can read the CRU article here.

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