• Posted June 2, 2025

Exercise Cuts Colon Cancer Recurrence and Boosts Survival, Study Finds

A structured exercise program helped colon cancer survivors live longer and lowered their odds for a relapse, a major international study shows.

The program lasted three years and included regular meetings with a fitness coach, Associated Press reported. 

Over the period, people in the exercise group had 28% fewer cancers and had 37% fewer deaths from any cause, researchers reported.

“This is about as high a quality of evidence as you can get,” Julie Gralow, chief medical officer of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), told the AP. “I love this study because it’s something I’ve been promoting but with less strong evidence for a long time.”

The results were presented Sunday at ASCO’s annual meeting in Chicago and published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The study included 889 people from the U.S., Canada, Australia, Israel and the U.K. All had been treated for colon cancer and had finished chemotherapy.

Half received a booklet with advice on exercise and healthy eating. The other half met with a fitness coach every two weeks for the first year, then monthly for the next two years.

“This is something I could do for myself to make me feel better,” said Terri Swain-Collins, 62, of Kingston, Ontario, who joined the program and walked regularly. “I wouldn’t want to go there and say, ‘I didn’t do anything,’ so I was always doing stuff and making sure I got it done.”

She said her coach helped her stay motivated. 

She wasn't the only one. The exercise group was more active than those who only got a booklet, the study found. Though there were some sore muscles and strains, many walked about 45 minutes several times a week. 

“When we saw the results, we were just astounded,” said study co-author Dr. Christopher Booth, a cancer specialist at Kingston Health Sciences Center in Ontario.

He said the program could cost just a few thousand dollars per patient — “a remarkably affordable intervention” that could help many live longer.

It’s the first randomized controlled trial to show a reduction in cancer recurrences and improved survival linked to exercise, said Dr. Jeffrey Meyerhardt of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who reviewed the findings.

Researchers are now studying blood samples from the participants to see why exercise helps. They suspect it could improve how the body processes insulin or boost the immune system.

Study co-author Kerry Courneya, an exercise and cancer expert at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, said the study proves the value of staying active.

“Now we can say definitively exercise causes improvements in survival,” he said.

More information

The National Cancer Institute has more on exercising and cancer.

SOURCE: Associated Press, June 1, 2025