Most tumors love glucose

It is well known that most cancer cells feed on glucose. And that they have a more active metabolism than the average healthy cell.

So the first goal should be to limit glucose intake, because that's how the cancer cell starts to consume itself.  

The most obvious measure therefore seems to be diet. that is, trying to eat less sugar. 

In this context, the so-called ketogenic diet has become known, where one takes only fats and proteins at all but no more carbohydrates. This causes the body to change and eventually produce the required glucose from the supplied proteins. 

Unfortunately, however, the cancer cell also adjusts and now utilizes proteins, which can even further accelerate its growth.

But apart from that, very few people really manage to consistently switch to only fats and proteins, because the cut in the usual diet is enormous.

But how can you still manage to cut off the cancer cell's fuel supply? 

One obvious alternative, which has been studied for many years, is exercise. This is because physical exertion naturally also stimulates sugar metabolism. 

The only problem is, if you want to achieve this effect by jogging, cycling or swimming then you have to practice this at least 8 hours per week. 

Daily exercise is enormously important - also for prevention, of course - but there is a far more efficient measure that causes the fuel supply for tumor cells to be throttled: And that is - you guessed it - strength training.

Dr. Freerk Baumann is the head of Oncological Exercise Medicine at the University Hospital of Cologne. Baumann believes that the musculature plays a hitherto undreamed-of role in the Cancer Prevention gamet, but that it is also essential as a healing measure. 

In 2009 and 2010, Baumann received several awards. His merit: exercise therapy for cancer patients. He says:

Strength training against cancer

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon worked as a young doctor at a palliative care unit and conducted various studies there. At that time she was an active strength athlete.
So she had a natural focus on the muscle mass of her patients. To her surprise, she noticed that the muscle mass factor also - and even especially - has a serious impact on a person's longevity, resistance and regenerative capacity in older people. 

Fascinated by these connections, Lyon then founded her own treatment philosophy, which she calls "Muscle Centered Medicine" - Muscle Centered Medicine. 

She says: we are just about to find out that muscles are not only essential for the supporting apparatus, but also have a kind of organ function. That is, they are able to absorb substances from the bloodstream, release messenger substances and thus significantly influence metabolism. 

Dr. Lyon therefore posits: Muscles are an organ whose functions become more and more important the older you get.  

And more: "The more advanced the age, the more important it is not only to maintain muscle mass, but to actively build it up". 

But our topic here is specifically the connection between Cancer cure and muscle massTherefore, let's go back to the glucose metabolism. 

The more muscles a person has, the more glucose can be stored in those muscles. In other words, the muscles ensure that the very fuel that a cancer cell craves is removed from the bloodstream. 

The more muscles, the less sugar and insulin the blood contains, i.e. less food is available to the tumor. 

However, there is another effect that is essential for cancer healing: You have probably already heard of natural killer cells heard. These patrol the blood and render degenerate cells they encounter harmless. However, cancer cells have a mechanism that camouflages them from the killer cells, allowing them to multiply undetected. 

Muscle activity also releases so-called myokines. These myokines ensure that more killer cells are sent out and at the same time cancer cells are better recognized and subsequently rendered harmless. can. 

Unscientifically formulated: the myokines are the sniffer dogs for the natural killer cells.

Strength training and cancer: research results

If one searches the scientific literature for findings that revolve around the interrelationships of Recurrences and strength training turn, you do not find much.

However, I dug up a study where they gave intense exercise to mice with tumors.

Granted, results from animal studies are not 100% transferable to humans, but: even if the rate in humans was half as good, would you want to do without?

And one last one, published just a few weeks ago Cancer study from GermanyHere, the effect of myokines, i.e. exactly those messenger substances that are released by muscle activity, was investigated on cancer patients while they were undergoing conventional medical therapy.

The special thing here was that the participants did not actively train themselves, but their muscles were activated with a device for whole-body electrostimulation. 

The research team from Friedrich Alexander University comes to the following conclusion:

Mind you, this was a study of patients with advanced cancer during conventional treatment. 

In summary, I quote the Ärzteblatt which headlines: 

Sport is as important as a cancer drug.

I would like to add to this: from my point of view, an essential self-healing measure like strength training should be, from be carried out in combination with the administration of drugs with strong side effects. Best still in combination with other simple, quasi free but highly efficient measures such as the conscious breathing or the Forest bathing. The consistent combination of all this - and ideally also the "detoxification of the mental environment" - causes the immune system to soar to new heights. Without side effects. And permanently.

3 Footnotes: 

1. One could now conclude that bodybuilders should practically never get cancer. In reality, however, it is exactly the opposite. Why is this so? It is an open secret that in bodybuilding people resort to illegal and harmful substances in order to make their muscle mass grow much faster and much bigger. The use of these substances is so harmful that in this group the risk of cancer even increases compared to an unathletic person.
2. Strength training does not necessarily mean enrolling in a gym. There are also training programs in which you work only with your own body weight or where you turn household objects into training objects.
3. Breast cancer patients often fear negative effects from sports and training, especially concerning the upper body. However, this is unfounded. So also breast cancer patients should Healing effects from strength training use for themselves. 

Here is another article by the author on the subject Strength training and its healing effect in cancer.

The 3 levels strategy by Gerald Hagler incorporates exercise & strength training as an integral and important part.

Finally, an English-language article, entitled: "Muscles fight cancer - The Science Behind Leveraging Cancer."