Walking for 30 minutes a day and practising yoga can help reduce fatigue in cancer patients and cut the risk of the disease spreading, coming back or resulting in death, research suggests.

Three studies presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the world’s largest cancer conference, add weight to growing evidence that physical activity can help, not hinder, patients.

he first study was a randomised control trial, the gold standard of medical studies, into the impact of yoga’s effect on inflammation. Inflammation can be a powerful force in cancer development, aiding and abetting tumour growth and spread around the body.

In the study, more than 500 cancer patients with an average age of 56 were recruited from across the US. All had received treatment for the disease between two months and five years earlier.

They were randomised to take up yoga or attend health education classes for a month. Each group took part in 75-minute sessions twice a week for four weeks.

The patients then underwent a series of blood tests. The research, led by the University of Rochester Medical Centre, found those who took up yoga had “significantly lower levels of pro-inflammatory markers” compared with patients in the other group.

“Our data suggest that yoga significantly reduces inflammation among cancer survivors,” the study’s authors wrote in a report published at the ASCO meeting.

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