An alternative cancer therapy does not have to be the only cancer therapy employed to battle the disease. Both conventional and alternative therapies can work together to fight the disease and defeat it. Whether using alternative cancer therapy alone or conventional therapy, or a combination, one essential component for all of them is exercise. Some extravgant claims have been made for the efficacy of exercise in the fight against cancer. According to one person, a junior college professor of philosophy in Northern California, his bone cancer was completely cured because he began training for and participating in marathon runs. Sometimes there are just spontaneous remissions. Nevertheless, exercise is proving to be a significant factor in cancer treatment.

Until there is more conclusive evidence that exercise is a causal agent in the cure of cancer, it must still be included as a part of an alternative cancer therapy method. Studies are still being made on the subject, but the outlook is promising. In the seasonal periodical, Cure, two case studies are cited that support the theory that exercise can improve the chances of cancer survival. The astounding conclusions of these studies was that adding exercise to cancer theraphy reduced the probability of death of the cancer patients engaged in the study by 50 percent! The amount of exercise needed to get such a result was not much. Walking one hour a day for six days at a normal pace increased the likelihood of survival of colorectal cancer patients by 47 percent! 

The second study had less discrete variables to consider. Activity versus inactivity were the independent variables, but what constituted activity or the lack of it was not fully defined. Still, the findings were encouraging. A 50 percent reduction in mortality of colorectal cancer patients was found. If exercise is still in the province of alternative cancer therapy, it goes far to recommend alternative therapy.

Then there is the study found in the Journal of Clinical Oncology of breast cancer patients who were put under a regimen of weight lifting exercise, a therapy component you will find in alternative cancer therapy. These patients lifted weights three times a week, doing two sets of eight to twelve repetitions in a single workout. As well as gaining increased body mass and strength, those on the program were found to complete their chemotheraphy treatment in greater numbers than those who were not on the program. In past decades, resistance exercise would have been considered part of an alternative cancer treatment, but not an essential component of conventional therapy; but with such findings, it is quickly being accepted today by cancer specialists as a necessary adjunct to conventional therapy. 

If exercise is not being encouraged by your oncologist, engage in it yourself. The studies that have been performed have shown that the most significant obstacles to taking exercise out of the alternative cancer therapy category is that many patients do not sustain the schedule. This is to be expected, since conventional therapy is quiet gruelling in itself. That professor of philosophy claims that exercise as a cancer victim is an expression of your will to live. It's the battle of your life, for your life. You'll have to reach deep down inside to force yourself to be active, to strain those muscles and consume your energy, but then, in the end, when you're one of the 50 percent who survive, you'll have the reward that's worth all the pain and suffering. You'll have your life. Exercise, exercise as if your life depended on it. It very well might.