How to Prevent Colon Cancer Recurrence

If you are a colon cancer survivor, diet changes and regular exercise can help prevent colon cancer recurrence. Here's what you should know.

The number of Americans dying from colorectal cancers has decreased in recent years, thanks in large part to more people having colonoscopies. If precancerous polyps are spotted during the screening, they are removed before cancer develops. If a colonoscopy catches colon cancer early and it’s treated, the disease is often highly curable.

But colon cancer still takes the lives of about 50,000 Americans annually. In fact, when it comes to malignancies that affect both men and women, colorectal cancer (which includes the colon and rectum) is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It’s understandable colon cancer survivors can be concerned about their future and whether they’ll experience a recurrence of the disease.

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Ongoing regularly screening is important to stop and treat any new malignancy. But survivors can also take steps to help prevent cancer from returning.

Researchers from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) say it’s important to follow the American Cancer Society’s Nutrition and Physical Activity Guidelines for Cancer Survivors. The recommendations include:

• Maintaining a healthy body weight
• Getting regular exercise
• Drinking alcohol only in moderation
• Eating a diet rich in whole grains, vegetables, and fruits
• Limiting red and processed meats

Although the guidelines were first published in 2012, it wasn’t known if following them would really improve outcomes for colon cancer patients long-term. To find out, Erin Van Blarigan, ScD, UCSF assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics, and colleagues studied 992 patients with stage III colon cancer. While the research team investigated the impact of two different kinds of chemotherapy on the patients, they also investigated whether lifestyle factors played a role in the research subjects’ survival and whether they had a colon cancer recurrence.

The study showed the patients who followed the American Cancer Society’s basic healthy eating and physical activity recommendations — both during cancer treatment and afterwards — had a much better chance of not only surviving their disease but also avoiding additional colon cancer.

The researchers used a scoring system to measure whether a lifestyle was healthy. They gave more points to the healthiest behaviors, such as regular exercise and eating a nutritious diet. The results of the study, presented at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), revealed a 42 percent lower chance of death for the cancer survivors who scored the highest in healthy lifestyle choices.

What’s more, there was a significant trend for a lower chance of cancer recurrence among those who ate a healthy diet and pursued regular physical activity, compared to the cancer survivors with less healthy lifestyles.

When they reported drinking moderate amounts of alcohol, the survivors with the highest lifestyle score had a 51 percent lower chance of death and a 36 percent lower chance of cancer recurrence than survivors who had the lowest healthy lifestyle scores.

It turned out that all factors of a healthy lifestyle were important when it came to raising the odds for surviving cancer and reducing recurrence.

It’s not unusual for cancer survivors to have chronic health problems, such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Following a healthy lifestyle that includes a nutritious diet and regular exercise can help those conditions, too.

“Patients often ask what else they can do in addition to chemotherapy to prevent their cancer from coming back, and the good news is that we have some information to point them to from a fairly large dataset,” said Daniel F. Hayes, MD, president of the ASCO. “This study clearly shows that, in addition to good, standard cancer treatment, which has reduced mortality due to colorectal cancer substantially, what patients eat, drink, and do afterward can make a difference.”

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