New Study: This Exercise May Cut Cancer Death Risk By 46%

One of the hardest things about being diagnosed with cancer is feeling like you have no control over the prognosis. However, new research suggests that your exercise habits may have a significant influence in your health and lifespan—even after you’ve been diagnosed.

Published January 2025 in the peer-reviewed BMJ: British Journal of Sports Medicine, a breaking study by a dozen researchers in the UK, Australia, Italy and Brazil teamed up to analyze health and fitness data from 47,000 patients living with varying types and stages of cancer.

Their findings conclude that maintaining healthy muscle strength and cardiorespiratory fitness through strength training—including weight training, bodyweight training, resistance band training, or anything else that builds muscle—could slash cancer patients’ risk of dying from any cause nearly in half.

The researchers split the participants into two groups, determined by either high or low levels of muscle strength and cardiorespiratory fitness. They found that compared with those in the lower physical fitness group, those in the higher physical fitness group saw a 31% to 46% reduction in all-cause mortality.

Besides promoting overall longevity, the team also found that maintaining muscle mass was linked with a lower likelihood of patients dying from their cancer, specifically. “Unit increments in [cardiorespiratory fitness] were associated with a significant 18% reduced risk of cancer-specific mortality,” the researchers report.

When they grouped the data by cancer stage, the team saw that these benefits held true even among advanced stage cancers. They noted that muscle strength and cardiorespiratory fitness were associated with an 8% to 46% lower risk of all-cause mortality in patients with advanced cancer stages, offering hope, along with a measure of manageability, to patients most vulnerable to their disease. Having a strength-building fitness plan was “especially predictive” in patients who had been diagnosed with lung and digestive cancers.

That’s especially because this is not the first study to find that maintaining one’s fitness can reduce cancer deaths and risk of recurrence. A previous study conducted by researchers from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City found that people diagnosed with cancer who regularly exercise could reduce their risk by 25%, compared with people with cancer who did not exercise. Among those who exercised regularly, median survival time was increased by around five years, that research revealed.

As the BMJ study authors point out, identifying a link between muscle mass and mortality in cancer patients can serve more than purpose. For one, it shows that assessing fitness measures can help predict mortality in cancer patients, potentially altering treatment.

And, even more importantly, it offers hope. There are simply some days during your cancer journey when exercise might feel like the last thing that’s possible. Rest is healing, too! This study might just be an invitation to keep a small set of dumbbells nearby for those days when you’re feeling a little stronger, even if you’re resting.

It may also be some good inspo to remember that if you’re healthy, giving thanks for your wellness by picking up some weights and taking care of your body can go a long way—including if, one day, you ever hear tough news.

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