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Physical Activity and Cancer

  • Cancer Prevention (J Cuzick, Section Editor)
  • Published:
Current Oncology Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Epidemiological evidence continues to accumulate on the benefits of physical activity in relation to cancer risk, progression and mortality. Recent studies suggest that sedentary behavior may independently affect cancer risk; they also focus on factors that may explain associations with physical activity, including cancer risk factors and whether associations exist for precancerous lesions. Despite enormous efforts to examine associations between physical activity and cancer, the literature is hindered by inconsistent assessment of physical activity across studies, and incomplete consideration of variation of effects across population subgroups (for example, defined by body size, age or sex) or tumors subgroups (organ location, receptor status, or molecular subtype), and whether other factors explain study results. Clearly, public health recommendations for appropriate changes in activity levels are needed; unfortunately, at this time, we have no exact physical activity prescription to give to the public.

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Acknowledgements

The work reported here was supported by National Cancer Institute grants K05 CA136967 and R01 CA77398.

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No potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article were reported.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Cancer Etiology, Department of Population Sciences, Beckman Research Institute, City of Hope, 1500 East Duarte Road, Duarte, CA, 91010, USA

    Jessica Clague & Leslie Bernstein

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  1. Jessica Clague
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  2. Leslie Bernstein
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Correspondence to Leslie Bernstein.

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Clague, J., Bernstein, L. Physical Activity and Cancer. Curr Oncol Rep 14, 550–558 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11912-012-0265-5

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