There serious side to the Mo - like our clinical study using exercise to improve life quality and lifespan of advanced prostate sufferers .

There's an ongoing need to thoroughly explore any means that can improve the longevity and life quality of all groups of people - and this is especially true for cancer patients. To this end, the Movember Foundation is currently running a pioneering international clinical trial establishing the links between physical exercise and its positive effects on men with advanced prostate cancer - research that, until now, has not been undertaken.

In addition to funding a range of crucial men’s cancer programmes and research in Ireland via the Irish Cancer Society, the Movember Foundation also funds and manages its own independent international research programmes. These are important because they coordinate and share the learnings and breakthroughs of teams of top-tier cancer researchers from around the world, free from any potential national or institutional information-sharing barriers.
 
One of these programmes is the Global Action Plan (GAP) 4 initiative, a pioneering clinical trial exploring the benefits that physical exercise can have on the quality of life of men with advanced prostate cancer. The whole purpose of GAP4 is, ultimately, to improve the quality of life of this patient group, and to help these men to live longer and happier lives.

We're delighted that the expert multi-disciplinary GAP4 clinicians and researchers from Ireland, USA, Australia, Netherlands, Canada and the UK will gather in Trinity College Dublin this weekend to discuss details of the project, which will recruit 866 men from seven different countries for a trial that will take five-and-a-half years to complete.

Dr Stephen Finn, Associate Professor Consultant, Histopathology at Trinity College Dublin, commented: 

“Evidence continues to accumulate that exercise is a medicine and has dramatic effects in relation to cancer prevention, as treatment, and preventing cancer from recurring. The Movember GAP 4 project is a unique opportunity to prove that exercise acting as a medicine delays prostate cancer progression and improves the lives of men with prostate cancer.”

In spite of progress in the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer in recent years, too many men still die of the disease. In 2012 alone, 307,500 men around the world lost their lives to prostate cancer. The GAP4 clinical trial aims to establish an optimal exercise protocol to maximise quality of life and survival of men with advanced prostate cancer, and unravel the molecular mechanisms underpinning the effects of exercise in these men.

“The question of whether exercise can extend the lives of life of men with advanced prostate cancer is critical not only for the men that we serve who have been diagnosed with the disease, but also for the health systems around the world that are struggling to provide access to the array of promising new therapies,” said Paul Villanti, Movember Foundation Executive Director of Programmes. “The Movember Foundation is uniquely placed to mobilise clinical and scientific leaders from around the world to explore this vital avenue of research and strive to break new ground in the global fight against prostate cancer.”