According to the National Cancer Institute, there were an estimated 18.6 million cancer survivors in the United States as of May 2025. When it comes to health and fitness, exercise has always been promoted as one of the leading benefactors for the results, however, a new study has highlighted the role of exercise on a vital level when it comes to protecting people from fatal diseases such as cancer.While numerous studies show that working out could reduce the risk of dying from cancer, this new study has pinpointed a specific workout routine that is proven to reduce the growth of cancer cells in just one session.Researchers in Australia recruited women who had survived breast cancer and had them undergo a single session of either resistance training such as weightlifting or high-intensity interval training (HIIT) which includes short but intense bursts of exercise followed by short breaks.The results revealed that immediately after one 45-minute resistance training or HIIT routine, participants showed up to 47% higher myokines in their blood. Myokines are the proteins released by the skeletal muscles during exercise that help the muscles communicate with the rest of the body. Myokines have also been shown to regulate metabolism and suppress molecules that cause inflammation, a key cause of cancer cell formation.According to the team, the elevated amount of myokines produced may slow the cancer growth by 20-30%. ‘By demonstrating anti-cancer effects at the cellular level, our results provide a potential explanation for why exercise reduces the risk of cancer progression, recurrence, and mortality,’ said Francesco Bettariga, lead study researcher and PhD student at Edith Cowan University in Australia, to the Daily Mail.‘We found that both resistance training and HIIT increased the release of myokines with anti-cancer properties after just a single exercise session. We then observed a reduction of up to 30 per cent in cancer cell growth in [lab testing].‘What stood out was that both modalities had comparable effects, suggesting that exercise intensity is the main driver of these anti-cancer changes, rather than the specific type of exercise performed.’
The successful study
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The study published in the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, looked at 32 patients who had been treated for breast cancer, ranging from stage one to stage three, at least four months beforehand. The participants in the resistance training group did eight repetitions of five sets of exercises for major muscle groups which included chest press, seated row, shoulder press, lateral pulldown, leg press, leg extension, leg curl and lunges. They got one to two minutes between sets to rest.In the HIIT group, participants performed seven 30-second bouts of high-intensity exercise on at least three of the following exercise machines: stationary bike, treadmill, rower and cross-trainer. They had three-minute rest periods between sets.The largest jump in the blood was of myokine IL-6, which increased 47% in the HIIT group immediately after exercise. ‘We selected two distinct exercise modalities—resistance and aerobic training—because they provide different physiological benefits: resistance training improves muscle strength, while aerobic training enhances cardiorespiratory fitness in order to determine which exercise could drive greater cancer-suppressive effects.‘Specifically, we used a high-intensity exercise to determine whether greater intensity could amplify these anti-cancer effects,’ said Bettariga.