The goal of the treatment is to decrease the amount of entropy released by the cell in the form of biomass. The first approach is to reduce the amount of food which can be digested by the cancer cell. A complementary approach consists of increasing the release of entropy in the form of heat, which will prevent the cell from synthesizing biomass, hence preventing cell growth. This will allow the cell to be able to breathe and the mitochondria will continue to burn food and release entropy.
When Winston Churchill was questioned about his being in good health late in life, he answered smoking his famous cigar: “No sport”. He was wrong. Sports has multiple beneficial effects. It increases the feeling of wellbeing, prevents the person from becoming overweight and slows the progression of cancers. There are multiple randomized trials, whereby cancer patients with and without exercise regimens are monitored to observe the progression of cancer.
Several years later, the impact on survival is major. Practicing sports after excision of breast cancer seems to increase survival much more than adjuvant chemotherapy.
Daley, A. J., Crank, H., Saxton, J. M., Mutrie, N., Coleman, R., Roalfe, A. (2007). Randomized trial of exercise therapy in women treated for breast cancer. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 25(13), 1713-1721.
Not all sports are the same. When the energy need is immediate, humans or animals do not use the mitochondria. So, the runner who sets off for a 100-meter track has an intense, but short-lived need for his strength. He will resort to anaerobic glycolysis. The sugar will be broken down in a few hundredths of a second into lactic acid. The amount of energy released is limited but is very quick.
You cannot ask the sprinter to run a marathon, because of the depletion of its reserves. Similarly, a cheetah can run at nearly 100 km/h, but it will stop exhausted after a few hundred meters, having produced too much lactic acid.
Endurance sports stimulate mitochondrial activity. For cancer patients, regular walking or even running is a good way to increase the release of entropy in the form of heat. Sport stimulates the formation of mitochondria and allows the tumor to burn, which then prevents the tumor from further dividing.
Eynon, N., Ruiz, J. R., Meckel, Y., Morán, M., Lucia, A. (2011). Mitochondrial biogenesis related endurance genotype score and sports performance in athletes. Mitochondrion, 11(1), 64-69.