S2 Ep25: How exercise can combat fatigue, boost immunity and treat lymphoedema – Tom Cowan

Exercise is good for you. We all know this. It benefits both your physical and mental health. But what if you have had breast cancer?

There is emerging evidence suggesting that regular exercise can reduce cancer recurrence and improves outcome post treatment.

Cancer treatment can be challenging and with it carries wide ranging side effects. These may include functional issues post surgery, to fatigue around chemotherapy to changes in body composition with endocrine treatment. Exercise can help with all of these and if you want to learn more, then this is the podcast episode for you.

Today’s guest is Tom Cowan, an exercise physiologist who works closely with those affected by cancer. Tom’s work has been recognised by Public Health England and the Faculty for Sport and Exercise Medicine UK, who selected him to become a member of their Cancer and Exercise expert panel.

Tom prescribes specific exercises tailored to the individual and understands the challenges faced by patients, either during or after treatment.

Topics  we covered include:

1. How to beat fatigue (a common side effect of treatment)
2. How moderate exercise can boost our immune system
3. What moderate intensity exercise looks like and what tools we can use to determine what this would be for individuals
4. The various exercises we can do before – during – and after treatment
5. Why we tend to focus on cardiovascular exercises and neglect the other important piece of the jigsaw which is strength training
6. The importance of bone health and exercises we can do to improve this
7. Exercises that can help with lymphoedema

It was a conversation full of extremely helpful advice, and Tom shares tips and tricks of what you can do to to incorporate exercise into your daily life.

You can connect with Tom:

Website: www.tcowan.co.uk

Instagram @thomasjcowan

Twitter @thomasjcowan

You can also find out more about Tom’s clinical work at www.chhp.com

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If you want to listen to how the pandemic impacted breast cancer services, then listen here.

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