Fight Skin Cancer With Exercise

• Sunday May 21, 2006 in: Diet and Exercise Tag(s):

  Much has been written about the benefits of exercise. It regulates blood pressure, helps improve cardiovascular endurance, lowers cholesterol levels and so on and so forth. The benefits of exercise are too many to list.

  And that list just got longer, as a new study reveals that, on top of everything else, exercise helps reduce skin cancer risk. In mice at least, that is, according to the study conducted by a team of doctors and scientists from Rutgers University, the state university of New Jersey.

  Published in the May 13 issue of the medical journal Carcinogenesis, the new study found that despite similar amounts of exposure to ultraviolet B light (UVB), which is known to cause skin cancer, one group of mice with access to running wheels developed 32% fewer tumors than a second group of sedentary mice.

  The researchers, however, were quick to point out that it is not known if exercise lowers the risk of skin cancer in humans.

  Chances are, not a few people, this writer included, are hoping that the same benefits also translate to humans. After all, skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in humans. The American Academy of Dermatology estimates that over 1 million new cases of skin cancer will be diagnosed in the United States this year, and that deaths due to the disease will reach 10,000.

  Still, exercise will always be a win-win proposition, whether it eventually helps us beat skin cancer or not. Now get on your running wheels, er, exercise machines and increase muscle strength, prevent fat from clogging your arteries, or whatever it is that exercise does to the human body. After all, it's for your own good.