Mechanism of Exercise Benefits for Prostate Cancer Identified

Prostate cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in the United States, with 217,000 American men diagnosed annually and 32,000 resultant deaths each year.  Previous studies have suggested that risk walking or vigorous exercise for three or more hours a week may lower the risk of prostate cancer progression and death.  June Chan, from the University of California/San Francisco (UCSF; California, USA), and colleagues completed a microarray analysis of prostate tissue from men with early-stage prostate cancer who exercise vigorously (three or more hours a week), and those who did not exercise.   Comparing the activity of some 20,000 genes in healthy prostate tissue biopsied from several dozen patients, the team teased out a molecular profile of 184 genes whose expression in the prostate gland is linked to vigorous exercise. Among the unique set of genes identified, the team found that specific tumor suppressor genes (namely BRCA1, BRCA2), DNA repair pathways (namely double-strand break repair, homologous recombination repair), and cell cycle pathways (the G1 pathway) were most involved in the positive modulation of prostate cancer among those who exercised vigorously.  Submitting that: "These data provide mechanistic insight into how [three or more hours a week of] vigorous [physical activity] may offer [prostate cancer]-specific benefits,” the study authors submit that: "understanding the molecular mechanisms by which such [physical activity] affects normal prostate gene expression may aid the development of strategies to prevent or delay P [prostate cancer] Ca progression.”