Bladder cancer patients with a healthy lifestyle have a considerably lower chance of the disease returning after their operation. That is the outcome of a study by Radboud university medical center among nearly nine hundred bladder cancer patients in more than twenty Dutch hospitals. Bladder cancer recurs relatively often: more than three in ten patients get the disease again within three years.
But in people who ate healthy, exercised and followed other lifestyle advice, the chance was a quarter lower: the disease came back in just over two in ten. The study only included patients whose tumor had not yet spread to the muscles around the bladder, or had spread.
‘Healthy living also has an effect on those who already have bladder cancer’
“We already know that a healthy lifestyle helps prevent cancer. Little research has been done into the effect of lifestyle on people who already have cancer. This supports the suspicion that healthy living also has an effect on those who already have bladder cancer,” says researcher Alina Vrieling. Earlier international research did show that patients who started eating less fat were less likely to have breast cancer recurrence.
Incidentally, the researchers did nothing extra in the bladder cancer study to encourage patients to live healthier lives. Nevertheless, some of them did adjust their lifestyle after the diagnosis. Three months later, they completed a questionnaire about their behavior. Eating more than 200 grams of vegetables per day is known to reduce the risk of cancer. The same applies to sufficient exercise. Drinking alcohol and eating red meat increases that risk. Those questionnaires resulted in a health score between 0 and 7.
Vrieling and her colleagues divided the group into three groups based on that score: the healthiest living group, the average group and the unhealthiest living group. They compared the ‘healthiest’ group of bladder cancer patients with the ‘unhealthiest’ group. In the first group, a new tumor appeared less often in the bladder.
‘Extra reason to pay attention to lifestyle’
Vrieling calls it a ‘hopeful’ result. According to her, doctors are paying more and more attention to the lifestyle of their patients. This can also be a reason for patients to pay extra attention to their lifestyle. But at least one more independent study is needed to confirm these results, she says.
Moreover, there should be a study afterwards in which the researchers do try to intervene in the lifestyle of patients. Such a study is relatively expensive and many participants are needed.
The survival rate for bladder cancer is also high. But because tumors recur so often, this form of cancer still has a lot of impact on the life of the patient, and the treatment entails a lot of costs.
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