EXERCISING FOR UPWARDS OF 30 MINUTES MOST DAYS may help relieve pain in patients diagnosed with cancer, according to a study of exercise and pain outcomes from more than 60,000 people. Can we exercise for pain relief? The new study suggests the answer is yes.
One in six of the study participants had a history of cancer.
I am a doctor who helps people with cancer. I am always taken by how many ways pain can manifest.
Pain
Some have pain directly caused by the tumor. I currently have a patient who gets headaches from a benign brain tumor.
It may be pushing on a nerve near the spine. This week, I had a patient with cancer in his spine, impinging on exiting nerves and causing severe pain.
Or maybe it is because of an injury from surgery. One of my patients has underarm pain following a dissection of her axillary lymph nodes.
Others have radiation therapy-induced skin irritation.
Did you know that four out of ten patients have chronic pain after a cancer diagnosis? Alas, pain is often underdiagnosed and undertreated.
How Might Exercise Reduce Pain?
The mechanism behind how exercise diminishes pain remains a bit elusive to researchers, though there are several theories:
- Exercise could elevate our pain threshold, particularly at the pain source. This observation points to adaptations in central inhibition. This process within the central nervous system works to suppress the perception of pain.
This view aligns with a 2017 review suggesting that exercise might alleviate pain by activating central inhibitory pathways.
In simpler terms, exercise might induce chemical changes influencing how much pain the brain’s sensory neurons can register.
- Exercise reduces inflammation and enhances blood flow. These phenomena can lead to pain reduction.
- Exercise can lower our stress levels, raising pain thresholds.
- Exercise can make us more socially active. Engaging in social networks can alleviate the constant battle with fatigue, pain, and other negative effects of cancer.
Social activities promote physical activity. This interplay between physical and social activity adds a valuable layer to understanding how exercise becomes a holistic approach to managing pain in cancer patients.
New study
A new research investigation reveals this:
Individuals diagnosed with cancer who engaged in more than 150 minutes of moderate activity weekly were about one-sixth (16 percent) less likely to experience pain than those who either did little or no exercise.
Individuals experiencing moderate to severe pain exhibited a particularly notable positive response to exercise.
Moderate to vigorous physical activity was inversely associated with pain intensity for adults.
Study details
The study enrolled 51,439 individuals without a history of cancer and 10,651 individuals with a cancer history from the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort.
The variables examined encompassed self-reported moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and the two-year alteration in MVPA.
Pain-related results were measured through pain intensity as the primary outcome and using analgesics as the secondary outcome.
My take — Exercise for Pain Relief
Elevated levels of physical activity were consistently associated with lower pain levels, and researchers observed this pattern in both individuals with and without a history of cancer.
In summary, individuals who have had cancer often experience ongoing pain.
Being physically active may reduce the intensity of the pain they experience.
Study limitations
It’s important to recognize some limitations in the study.
First, the group of people studied was mostly older and primarily white, so the findings may not fully represent the broader population or the diversity among those who have had cancer.
Also, some data on physical activity needed to be included, and how physical activity was measured focused on specific activities, relying on people to report their activity levels, which can introduce errors.
More limitations
Another point is that the study looked at pain intensity, which doesn’t tell us much about the specific type or source of pain.
Therefore, the results might not apply to all kinds of pain experiences. Pain-relief medications were also based on people reporting it themselves, which might need to be more accurate.
Additionally, the researchers can’t rule out the possibility that experiencing more pain could lead to less physical activity (reverse causation).
The study tried to address this by excluding participants who had no pain initially, but this didn’t significantly change the results.
My take – Exercise for Pain Relief
It suggests that cancer survivors who engage in more physical activity or increase their activity over time may likely experience slightly less pain compared to those who consistently engage in lower levels of activity.
In simpler terms, staying active seems to be associated with lower pain levels for both people with a history of cancer and those without.
What say you?
