Lifestyle Choices
Adopting an Anti-Cancer Lifestyle
Behavioral factors play a critical role in cancer treatment outcomes. While protective behaviors like regular physical activity and strong social support enhance survival, harmful behaviors—such as smoking, poor treatment adherence, and unhealthy body weight—are linked to significantly higher cancer-specific mortality. Addressing these modifiable behaviors is essential to improving treatment efficacy and long-term survival.
Key Lifestyle Insights
- Physical Activity – Lowers mortality by up to 24% by enhancing immune surveillance and reducing systemic inflammation.
- Fasting – Improves tumor sensitivity to chemotherapy and reduces treatment-related toxicity by triggering cellular stress responses.
- Gut Health – Supports immune regulation and may enhance response to immunotherapy by maintaining a balanced microbiome.
- Frequent Disease Monitoring – Enables early detection of recurrence, allowing for prompt, potentially life-saving intervention.
- Quality Sleep – Regulates immune function and stress hormones, boosting cellular repair and emotional resilience.
- Maintaining Healthy Weight – Avoids metabolic imbalances and inflammation linked to both obesity and undernutrition.
- Chronic Stress – Disrupts immune function and increases pro-inflammatory signaling, facilitating tumor growth and spread.
- Heavy Alcohol Use – Impairs liver detoxification, suppresses immune response, and promotes inflammation, undermining treatment.
- Smoking – Accelerates genetic mutations and inflammation, reducing treatment efficacy and increasing mortality by up to 50%.
- Treatment Nonadherence – Interrupts therapeutic regimens, reducing overall effectiveness and increasing risk of progression.
- Environmental Exposures – Toxins and pollutants trigger oxidative stress and chronic inflammation, impeding recovery and resilience.
Discover the Impacts of Different Lifestyle Choices
Impact of Lifestyle on Treatment Success
Behavioral factors play a pivotal role in cancer treatment success, with some having more pronounced effects on survival outcomes. Smoking is among the most detrimental behaviors, significantly reducing treatment efficacy and increasing cancer-specific mortality by up to 50% (HR: 1.50; 95% CI: 1.35–1.67), with evidence spanning multiple cancer types (11). Treatment adherence is another critical determinant, as nonadherence can lead to suboptimal therapeutic outcomes and a 21% higher risk of mortality across cancers (HR: 1.21; 95% CI: 1.12–1.31) (14). Body weight is also a major factor, with both obesity and being underweight linked to worse survival outcomes, including a 29% increased cancer-specific mortality risk for obese individuals (HR: 1.29; 95% CI: 1.10–1.51) (2). Chronic stress similarly exacerbates inflammation and impairs immune response, significantly increasing recurrence and mortality risks (13). Physical activity, conversely, offers a substantial protective effect, with regular exercise reducing cancer-specific mortality by up to 24% (HR: 0.76; 95% CI: 0.70–0.84) (9). Additionally, social support plays a significant role by enhancing psychological resilience and adherence to treatment, improving survival rates (12).
Other behaviors, while impactful, exhibit more variable effects depending on individual circumstances. Sleep quality and duration influence immune function, with insufficient sleep increasing cancer-specific mortality risk (10). Alcohol consumption is associated with divergent outcomes; heavy drinking worsens survival, while light-to-moderate intake shows mixed or protective effects depending on cancer type (1). Emerging evidence suggests that gut health is critical to treatment efficacy, as dysbiosis can impair immune response and increase recurrence risks (6). Fasting during chemotherapy may improve outcomes by reducing treatment-related toxicity and enhancing tumor sensitivity (HR: 0.78; 95% CI: 0.65–0.94) (5). Disease monitoring frequency facilitates early detection of recurrences, improving survival rates (3). Environmental exposures, such as air pollution and occupational carcinogens, add an external burden to treatment success by increasing inflammation and oxidative stress (4). Recreational drug use beyond alcohol and marijuana negatively impacts treatment adherence, worsening outcomes (8). While marijuana may alleviate symptoms like nausea, its overall impact on survival remains unclear and warrants further investigation (7). Together, these findings highlight the importance of prioritizing smoking cessation, treatment adherence, and body weight management as key interventions, alongside fostering physical activity and social support, to maximize cancer treatment success.
- Downer, M. K., et al. (2018). Alcohol consumption and prostate cancer mortality. Cancer Epidemiology, 56, 63–68.
- Calle, E. E., et al. (2003). Overweight, obesity, and mortality from cancer in a prospectively studied cohort of U.S. adults. New England Journal of Medicine, 348(17), 1625–1638.
- van de Poll-Franse, L. V., et al. (2011). Disease monitoring and survival in cancer: A population-based cohort study. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 29(12), 1539–1545.
- Turner, M. C., et al. (2014). Outdoor air pollution and cancer: An overview of the current evidence and public health recommendations. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, 64(6), 335–349.
- de Groot, S., et al. (2020). Fasting mimicking diet as an adjunct to neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer: A randomized phase 2 trial. Nature Communications, 11(1), 3083.
- Gopalakrishnan, V., et al. (2018). The influence of the gut microbiome on cancer, immunity, and immunotherapy. Cancer Cell, 33(4), 570–580.
- Abrams, D. I., et al. (2020). Integrating cannabis into clinical cancer care. Current Oncology, 27(4), e357–e361.
- Azar, M. M., et al. (2015). Impact of substance use disorders on adherence and outcomes in cancer care. American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 41(2), 161–167.
- Friedenreich, C. M., et al. (2016). Physical activity and cancer outcomes: A precision medicine approach. Clinical Cancer Research, 22(19), 4766–4775.
- Zhang, X., et al. (2016). Sleep duration and cancer risk: A systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, 25(7), 1067–1075.
- Parsons, A., et al. (2010). Smoking and survival after lung cancer diagnosis: A meta-analysis. Annals of Oncology, 21(5), 995–1005.
- Kroenke, C. H., et al. (2006). Social networks, social support, and survival after breast cancer diagnosis. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 24(7), 1105–1111.
- Antoni, M. H., et al. (2006). Stress management intervention improves quality of life in prostate cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy. Health Psychology, 25(4), 430–438.
- Hershman, D. L., et al. (2011). Treatment adherence and survival in patients with breast cancer. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 29(19), 2595–2603.
