Are Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior Associated With Cancer-Related Symptoms in Real Time?: A Daily Diary Study.
Raheem J Paxton, Chuong Bui, Dottington Fullwood and 5 others
PMID 33156014WHAT IT FOUND
On days with more physical activity during treatment, patients reported lower symptom burden and fatigue, but only at BMI below 36.5 for burden and 35 for fatigue.
Sedentary time was not consistently associated with symptoms, and pain interference was unchanged.
Key findings
01Higher within-person physical activity was associated with lower daily symptom burden and lower daily fatigue, but the association weakened as BMI rose and was absent above BMI 36.5 for symptom burden and 35 for fatigue.
02No significant physical activity effect was found for pain interference in the daily pain model.
03Sedentary behavior was associated with lower daily symptom burden in younger patients; its interaction with BMI for pain interference had no significant simple effects; and it showed no significant effects for fatigue.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Only 22 patients were recruited, and 3 did not complete, so the findings are unstable and not generalizable. Physical activity and sitting were self-reported with printed daily surveys, so recall and reporting bias could distort the associations. The study was done at 1 small cancer center in a Southern State, limiting broader applicability. Missing data were carried forward for 12% of observations, which may not reflect actual daily behavior. This was an observational daily diary study, so it cannot show that changing activity or sitting changes symptoms. The BMI and age cut points were estimated from small repeated-measures models, so thresholds such as 36.5 and 35 should not be treated as clinical rules. Pain interference results were null, and sedentary behavior findings were inconsistent or unexpected, so they should not be used to recommend more sitting.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that physical activity will reduce symptoms for every cancer patient or that sitting more is beneficial. The study was observational, involved 22 patients, was self-reported, showed no significant effect for pain interference, and found sedentary behavior associations only in unexpected or nonsignificant simple-effect models.