Dr. Kerry Courneya

They want to know, what's going to help me get through these treatments?

What's going to help me benefit from these treatments?

What's going to help me manage the side effects?

And once they start seeing the research there, that exercise is not just this general health behavior for cancer patients, but it's actually going to help them manage their cancer, that can be very motivating for them.

Yeah, so one of the big ones is managing some of these side effects of the treatments.

You mentioned fatigue, which is one of the most important ones.

Many cancer patients experience fatigue from these treatments as well as symptoms.

And in the past, oncologists used to recommend, take it easy, rest.

This is the best way to get through these treatments.

And so some of the early studies started showing the patients that rested during chemotherapy actually reported more fatigue than the patients who exercise.

And this is very counterintuitive for patients, and it's counterintuitive for doctors.

You know, when you're tired and not feeling well, rest seems like the best medicine.

but it's not the best medicine.

And we've demonstrated that consistently in the exercise oncology field that patients who exercise going through these treatments have lower fatigue.

So that's a huge factor.

The other benefits that have been shown definitively are improvements in sleep quality.

So you can imagine the stress and the anxiety of going through these treatments, not knowing whether the treatments are working, whether or not you're gonna have recurrence, very difficult with sleep.

And exercise has been shown to benefit sleep quality, reduce some of the anxiety associated with cancer, depression levels, and some of these other side effects as well.

Peripheral neuropathy, there's been some studies showing some potential benefits.

So that's one of the key benefits is managing the side effects.