MedWire News: Few cancer survivors eat healthily and participate in physical activity, despite the known benefits for their quality of life, researchers have found.

"Recommendations suggest that cancer survivors accumulate at least 150 minutes of moderate-to-strenuous or 60 minutes of strenuous physical exercise per week, consume at least five servings of fruits and vegetables each day, and not smoke," explain Dr Christopher Blanchard, from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and colleagues.

To examine whether cancer survivors are following these recommendations, and whether they are associated with improved quality of life, the researchers surveyed 9105 patients who had been treated for breast, prostate, colorectal, bladder, uterine and skin cancers.

The team found that cancer survivors who followed most of the recommendations had a significantly better health-related quality of life than those who did not. Furthermore, the relationship between compliance with recommendations and quality of life was cumulative - that is, the more recommended health behaviours survivors engaged in, the better their quality of life.

However, just 15-19% cancer survivors were meeting the 'five-a-day' fruit and vegetable intake recommendations and just 30-47% were meeting recommended levels of physical activity. Most (83-92%) of the survivors followed advice not to smoke.

In total, just 5% of the cancer survivors were meeting all three recommendations, the researchers report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Dr Blanchard and team conclude: "Few cancer survivors are meeting the physical activity or five-a-day recommendations, and even fewer are meeting all three lifestyle recommendations.

"Interventions to increase physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption and reduce smoking are warranted and may have additive effects on the health-related quality of life of cancer survivors."