Brisk walking ‘can lower prostate cancer risk’

Taking regular brisk walks can lower the risk of prostate cancer progressing among men who have been diagnosed with the disease, new research has revealed.

Scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have concluded that those who walk at a minimum of three miles per hour for at least three hours every week will see the risk of the cancer spreading further cut by almost 60 per cent.

A total of 1,455 men took part in the study and those who carried out the exercise were deemed less likely to require another round of cancer treatment or develop the biochemical markers that indicate a recurrence of the disease.

Prostate cancer is – excluding melanoma skin cancer – the most common form of cancer among UK makes, with in excess of 50 per cent of those diagnosed aged over 70.

"Our results provide men with prostate cancer something they can do to improve their prognosis," remarked first author of the study and postdoctoral fellow at UCSF Erin Richman.

She emphasised that the walking "had to be brisk" for any discernable benefit to be seen among patients.