SUNDAY, Sept. 2 (HealthDay News) -- Even though research has shown that exercise offers significant benefits in cancer care and recovery, many patients are reluctant to exercise and few discuss it with their oncologists, according to a new study.

Exercise can improve cancer patients' mobility, which enables them to enjoy activities and prevents them from becoming isolated in their homes. It can contribute to overall feelings of strength and physical safety, ease cancer-related fatigue and improve sleep, notes a Mayo Clinic news release.

And, regular exercise in patients who have gone through breast or colon cancer treatment has been found to reduce cancer recurrence by up to 50 percent, the release noted.

"As doctors, we often tell patients that exercise is important, but to this point, nobody had studied what patients know about exercise, how they feel about it and what tends to get in the way," study lead author Dr. Andrea Cheville, of the Mayo Clinic's department of physical medicine and rehabilitation, said in the news release.

She and her colleagues found that patients who exercised regularly before their cancer diagnosis were more likely to exercise after treatment. They also found that many patients considered daily activities, such as gardening, to be sufficient exercise and didn't realize that these activities tend to require minimal effort.

"Most were not aware that inactivity can contribute to weakening of the body and greater vulnerability to problems, including symptoms of cancer," Cheville said.

Cancer patients took exercise advice most seriously when it came directly from an oncologist, but none of the patients in the study said their oncologist had discussed exercise with them.

"Generally, patients are not being given concrete advice about exercise to help them maintain functionality and to improve their outcomes," Cheville said in the news release.

The study was recently published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.

More information

The American Cancer Society offers healthy living guidelines for cancer survivors  .

FRIDAY, Aug. 31 (HealthDay News) -- It may not help the restaurant's bottom line, but a new study suggests that diners are happier and eat less in fast-food restaurants when the lighting and music go soft.

"When we did a makeover of a fast-food restaurant, we found that softer music and lighting led diners to eat 175 fewer calories and enjoy it more," study lead author, Brian Wansink, professor of marketing and director of Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab, said in a university news release.

The researchers found that people ate less -- 775 calories instead of 949, or a decrease of 18 percent -- thanks to the changes in the atmosphere. People also said they enjoyed their food more.

"These results suggest that a more relaxed environment increases satisfaction and decreases consumption," Wansink said. "This is important information for fast-food restaurants, which are often accused of contributing to obesity: Making simple changes away from brighter lights and sound-reflecting surfaces can go a long way toward reducing overeating -- and increase their customers' satisfaction at the same time."

The findings were published online in the August issue of Psychological Reports.

More information

For more about weight control, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 29 (HealthDay News) -- Thirty minutes of daily exercise achieves the same amount of weight loss as 60 minutes, according to a small new study.

The research included 60 heavy but healthy Danish men who exercised for either 30 or 60 minutes a day while wearing a heart-rate monitor and calorie counter. The training sessions were designed to generate a light sweat, but the participants were expected to boost the intensity and push themselves harder three times a week.

The men who exercised 30 minutes a day lost an average of about 8 pounds over three months, compared with an average of 6 pounds for those who exercised 60 minutes a day.

"Participants exercising 30 minutes per day burned more calories than they should relative to the training program we set for them," Mads Rosenkilde, a doctoral student in the biomedical sciences department at the University of Copenhagen, said in a university news release. "We can see that exercising for a whole hour instead of a half does not provide any additional loss in either body weight or fat."

"The men who exercised the most lost too little relative to the energy they burned by running, biking or rowing," Rosenkilde added. "Thirty minutes of concentrated exercise gives equally good results on the scale."

Rosenkilde suggested that the surprising results may be due to the fact that doing just 30 minutes of exercise left participants with the desire and energy to do more physical activity after their required exercise sessions.

In addition, it's likely that the men who did 60 minutes of exercise daily ate more and therefore lost slightly less weight than anticipated.

The study was published online recently in the American Journal of Physiology.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute offers a guide to physical activity.

TUESDAY, Aug. 28 (HealthDay News) -- People who have a normal weight but have excess belly fat may have a higher risk of dying from heart disease than even obese individuals, researchers report.

In a new study, investigators found that normal-weight people who have what is called central obesity are at almost three times greater risk of dying from heart disease and two times greater risk of dying from any cause than those of normal weight with a normal waist-to-hip ratio.

"People with normal weight may be less likely to feel the need for lifestyle changes," explained lead researcher Dr. Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. "But, central obesity isn't healthy even in those with normal weight."

There are several reasons why central obesity may raise the risk of death, Lopez-Jimenez said. It increases insulin resistance, and people with central obesity tend to have less fat in areas where fat might be protective, such as the hips and legs, he said. People with central obesity also tend to have less muscle mass.

For obese people, some of the risk is tempered by fat distribution, Lopez-Jiminez noted. Obese people tend to have fat in those places where it may be protective, and they tend to have more muscle mass, he explained.

For normal-weight people with central obesity, the only way to reduce the risk is to lose weight and build muscle mass, Lopez-Jimenez said, so that the weight is redistributed.

"A healthy diet and exercise are the way to treat this problem. You do both, lose weight and build muscle mass," he said.

The findings were presented Monday at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Munich, Germany. Research presented at medical meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

For the study, Lopez-Jimenez's team collected data on more than 12,000 men and women in the United States who took part in the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

As part of the survey, participants had their weight, height, waist and hip size measured. In addition, the researchers matched data from the survey with the National Death Index.

Over 14 years of follow-up, more than 2,500 people died. Of those, more than 1,100 deaths were due to cardiovascular disease.

Lopez-Jimenez's group found the risk of dying from heart disease was 2.75 times higher, and the risk of dying from any causes was 2.08 times higher among those of normal weight with central obesity, compared with people of normal weight and normal waist-to-hip ratio.

To make sure their results would reflect body type, the researchers excluded anyone in the survey who had cancer or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. They also took into account age, sex, race, smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol.

Commenting on the study, Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, explained that "central obesity is the presence of excess fat in the abdomen. In this condition, the amount of fat deposited in the abdomen is out of proportion to total body fat."

Many studies have shown that central obesity is independently associated with the increased risk of cardiovascular events, Fonarow noted.

"In some studies, waist circumference or waist-hip ratio is a better predictor of risk than body mass index," Fonarow said. Body mass index is a measurement based on a person's height and weight only.

"In this new study, men and women in the normal body mass index category, but with increased waist-hip ratio had the highest cardiovascular mortality risk, even higher than those classified as obese by body mass index. This increased cardiovascular risk remained evident after risk factor adjustment," he added.

"This study further highlights the dangers associated with excess fat in the abdomen," Fonarow said.

While the study reported an association between belly fat in normal-weight people and risk of death from heart disease, it did not prove that a cause-and-effect relationship exists.

More information

To determine your hip-to-waist ratio, visit the University of Maryland  .