An established presence in the financial advisory sphere, Richard DiVenuto has successfully helped restructure a wide range of family enterprises. With a strong fitness and nutrition focus in his daily life, Richard DiVenuto has extensive knowledge on the role that muscle mass and physical strength has in fighting cancer.
One connection centers on sarcopenia, or the loss of muscle mass associated with aging. A 2018 study published in JAMA Oncology focused on more than 3,000 patients with stage II and stage III breast cancer, and found that those patients with sarcopenia, or low muscle mass, at the time they were diagnosed had a significantly lower chance of survival. This was despite the fact that, in all patients studied, diagnosis occurred before cancer had spread past the breast.
These findings also apply to a wide range of non-metastatic cancers, with a similar trial finding a connection between low muscle mass and poor prognosis when it comes to non-metastatic colorectal cancer. When sarcopenia is combined with high body fat, the patient outlook is even worse, with this combination increasing mortality rates by 89 percent.
The study’s authors call for physicians to work with cancer patients on implementing strength training, as well as dietary changes and weight loss efforts, into any lifestyle program for reducing breast cancer recurrence risks.
Richard DiVenuto 