It’s January, which means all around the world people are reflecting on their habits and looking forward to establishing new, healthier ones. Exercise often plays a key role in achieving one’s New Year’s goals. As most of us can attest here in the United States, we often live a far too sedentary lifestyle between work and free time. While exercise is often pursued in hopes of burning off excess fat around our waistlines, did you know it can also positively affect the health of your pancreas?

A systematic review of publications investigating exercise’s effect on pancreatic cancer patients found that low to moderate intensity exercise routines were “consistently associated with improvements in cancer-related fatigue, psychological distress, and physical function…” (Pancreas, 2021). Another study found that just 30 minutes of exercise 5 days a week increased the amount of tumor resilience in patients with confirmed pancreatic cancer. According to the study’s senior author, Dr. Dafna Bar-Sagi, PhD, “Even mild exercise can profoundly alter the environment in tumors,” (NYU Langone Health, 2022). Patients who followed this exercise routine had elevated levels of T cells, specifically CD8 T cells (Cancer Cell, 2022). T cells are already known to fight infections and diseases, including tumors and cancers. CD8 T cells specifically release receptor agents for interleukin-15. The study showed that when T cells are bonded with interleukin-15, they become much stronger in their fight against pancreatic tumors (Cancer Cell, 2022). Since interluekin-15 is normally released from muscles during exercise, doctors concluded that giving interleukin-15 to a patient too ill to exercise may strengthen their response to immunotherapy treatments aimed at destroying their tumors (NYU Langone Health, 2022)(Cancer Cell, 2022).

With the benefits of exercise still being uncovered, it’s more important than ever to stick to that New Year’s resolution. As pancreatic cancer remains one of the deadliest forms of cancer, any chance to sway the odds of survival in a patient’s favor is greatly received. This recent discovery by Dr. Bar-Sagi and her team on how exercise can improve the odds of a patient’s fight against pancreatic tumors only furthers the argument that regular exercise is an important factor in determining a person’s lifelong wellbeing.