Results of a Diet/Exercise Feasibility Trial to Prevent Adverse Body Composition Change in Breast Cancer Patients on Adjuvant Chemotherapy

Effect of physical exercise on muscle mass and strength in cancer patients during treatment—A systematic review

“…One trial compared RE alone or together with a low fat vegetable diet against a control group. All groups in this trial received calcium-rich diet [42]. Details of the content of the physical exercise programs are provided in Table 2.…”

“…There was no additional effect of AE compared with UC. In the study by Demark-Wahnefried et al [42], a small to moderate effect size was found in favour of the UC (receiving calcium rich diet only) compared with the two experimental groups I) calcium rich diet + RE (SMD = 0. 27; CI -2.9 to 2.2) and II) calcium rich diet + RE + low-fat vegetable diet (SMD= 0.36; CI -2.8 to 2.3).…”

“…No effects were reported in the trials by Cunningham and colleagues [41], comparing two RE groups exercising three or five days per week with UC, the study by Mustian and colleagues [34] comparing a CAE group exercising seven days a week for four weeks with UC, or in the trial by Demark-Wahnefried and colleagues [42] comparing three groups: calcium-rich diet only, calciumrich diet + RE and calcium rich + RE + low fat vegetable diet. In the latter study, patients in the RE groups exercised five days a week for 26 weeks.…”

“…Muscle mass was reported in only six trials, and except for two trials involving HSCT patients [32,41], these were conducted on patients with breast cancer or prostate cancer [31,34,37,42]. Overall, the tendency in these six trials was that the experimental groups (either AE, RE or CAE) maintained or modestly improved muscle mass from pre to post-test while the CG reduced muscle mass.…”

“…The majority of trials had small sample sizes; eight trials had less than 50 participants [29, 31-34, 41, 43, 44]. Four trials were feasibility trials [29,32,34,42].…”