Is There a Connection Between Kidney Cancer and Exercise?
More Programs and Publications Featuring Dr. Pavlos Msaouel
In this program:
Does kidney cancer have a link to exercise? Watch as Dr. Pavlos Msaouel explains the benefits of exercise in kidney cancer prevention and the advice about exercise levels that are recommended for those with sickle cell trait.
Transcript
Interviewer:
Dr. Msaouel, is there a connection between kidney cancer and exercise?
Dr. Pavlos Msaouel:
So overall, any exercise has beneficial effects that can help prevent kidney cancer overall, so, for example, exercise can help with obesity. We mentioned before that obesity is a risk factor for kidney cancer, but at the same time, exercise can also improve blood pressure.
Remember before we said that high blood pressure is another risk factor for kidney cancer, and if you get better control of your blood pressure, then you also protect your kidneys, which is another risk factor, not having well-functioning kidneys is another risk factor for kidney cancer, so overall, exercise is beneficial for kidney cancer, and this applies to any type of exercise, weather, high intensity or moderate. Things do change a bit, if an individual has sickle cell trait, that blood disorder that we mentioned before, that afflicts three million Americans and 300 million individuals worldwide, those are the individuals that have the sickle cell trait that are at increased risk for developing this rare kidney cancer renal medullary carcinoma, RMC. And what happens with regards to exercise in that particular population is that we're now having emerging evidence that whereas moderate intensity exercise, the kind of exercise that gets your heart rate to 110, 130 around that range, will make you break a sweat after five or more minutes of exercising, that exercise is protective, it seems to be actually preventing renal medullary carcinoma from individuals with the trait, however, high intensity exercise, the very high intensity on the one that gets your heart rate to really high levels, 160, 170, or even more consistently for a prolonged period of time.
The kind of exercise that will make you break a sweat almost immediately, that kind of exercise for individuals that have the sickle cell trait may actually harm their kidneys, and by harming their kidneys may increase their risk for this particular kidney cancer.
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