In January, my wife was diagnosed with non-smoker’s lung cancer (NSCLC–adenocarcinoma EGFR+) in January. Long story short, she had a left upper lobe segmentectomy in March which (based on previous PET scan & needle biopsies) was supposed to leave her “cancer-free”. Unfortunately, a lymph node outside the lung was found to be cancerous. She now has to undergo 4 rounds of chemo with carboplatin/pemetrexed. Prior to her diagnosis, her DL was about 225# / BP ~ 130# / Leg Press ~ 320x8. She is 65yoa.
I’ve searched a few of the other ‘chemo’ threads, but couldn’t quite find the answer I was looking for; so my question…is lifting weights during chemo helpful? The way it was explained in “chemo class” was that the cocktail poisons everything, so the body needs ~3 wks to recover before the next round. Would the demands of weightlifting (using auto regulation, of course), compete for resources the body needs to recover for the next round?
Can you explain a bit how weightlifting would help and not compete…if that is, in fact, what happens? Thank you in advance for your time in answering!
Hi,
Yes, I would advise continued exercise (including whatever strength training & conditioning is feasible/tolerable) throughout the treatment period, using autoregulation strategies such as RPE to adjust intensity based on how she’s feeling & performing on any given day.
There is an entire field called “exercise oncology” that studies this, and I would encourage you to look into if interested. Patients who are fitter going into cancer treatment have better outcomes (they are more likely to be eligible for the first-line treatments, and they are less likely to experience dose-limiting side effects from treatment), and those who continue to stay active throughout treatment maintain better quality of life and less fatigue, depression, and other negative symptoms during treatment, as well as lower overall risk of death compared with those who are less fit and/or those who withdraw from physical activity and exercise.
Thanks, Dr Baraki! Right now, we’re sticking to walking because we thought lifting would hinder recovery. She’ll be glad to hear she can once again incorporate more ‘iron’ into her diet! I’ll check out exercise oncology…sounds like it would be very helpful in our case. Thank you again for all you guys do at BBM!!!