{"id":52276,"date":"2025-07-09T20:28:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T20:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/52276\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T20:28:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T20:28:11","slug":"exercise-helps-fight-cancer-and-we-may-finally-know-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/52276\/","title":{"rendered":"Exercise helps fight cancer \u2013 and we may finally know why"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Working out seems to have a cancer-fighting effect<\/p>\n

Franziska & Tom Werner\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Exercise is known to help prevent cancer and suppress the growth of existing tumours. It is also associated with changes in the gut microbiome \u2013 and now researchers have shown how these changes could result in exercise\u2019s cancer-fighting effect.<\/p>\n

Marlies Meisel<\/a> at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and her colleagues gave an aggressive form of melanoma to two groups of mice. One group had been on a four-week exercise regimen, while the other group had been sedentary.<\/p>\n

As expected, the mice who exercised had smaller tumours and better survival rates. However, in animals treated with antibiotics or kept completely germ-free, exercise showed no benefit. The evidence was clear: the magic was in the microbes, as well as the molecules they produce, called metabolites.<\/p>\n

But the microbiome makes thousands of metabolites, so the researchers used machine learning to help sift through the candidate molecules and landed on formate. This is a metabolite of bacteria that is increased by exercise and boosts the potency of CD8 T cells in the immune system \u2013 which are key to fighting cancer.<\/p>\n

Next, the team looked at 19 humans with advanced melanoma. Those with high levels of formate had longer progression-free survival than those with low levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis research highlights the importance of assessing the metabolites the bacteria are producing, and not just which bacteria,\u201d says Meisel.<\/p>\n

Ken Lau<\/a> at Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, who studies how the microenvironment in the gut influences conditions such as colorectal cancer and inflammatory bowel disease, says this kind of research is exciting because we are learning how to tap into the pathways of specific molecules to fine-tune immune responses. But he warns that there is more research to do. \u201cWhat happens if the patient stops exercising? Does the effect fade or does it somehow persist? There\u2019s a lot we still need to understand,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Meisel and her team are now looking at whether exercise-induced changes to the gut microbiome could play a role in other conditions.<\/p>\n

Topics:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Working out seems to have a cancer-fighting effect Franziska & Tom Werner\/Getty Images Exercise is known to help…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":52277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[235,1728,1198,210,20302,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-52276","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-cancer","9":"tag-exercise","10":"tag-fitness","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-microbiome","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114825167856685893","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}