TopMedTalk in Collaboration with MacMillan Cancer Support in the UK developed this podcast series to support patients during their cancer journey amidst the COVID 19 crisis.

It's vital you remain active after a cancer diagnosis, why is this? Hear the fascinating story behind the discovery that activity not only reduces your overall levels of fatigue but also improves your chances of recuperation. "You have to pace yourself [...] listen to your body"; but any physical activity will help fight feelings of tiredness. In short, if you get active you feel good.

Also in this podcast, with direct reference to medical trials and studies, our guests give you the mechanism behind incredibly helpful changes caused by moderate exercise in cancer patients, evidence which has led medics to conclude that "exercise is real medicine".

"When we're talking about being active during cancer it's at any stage of the cancer journey: from prehabilitation through recovery". Prehabilitation is the process by which people prepare their bodies for a major obstacle such as an operation or chemotherapy. It's like rehabilitation but it takes place before the event.

Just as when you start your recovery after treatment you would expect to get your body back to full health, here you try to achieve the best possible physical health before you start. The key point is that the medicine of exercise can be useful from diagnosis right through to full recovery and beyond.

Again, with direct reference to the evidence, find out how incredible research into prehabilitation is changing the way we think about cancer and recovery.

Recorded specifically at the height of the COVID 19 crisis hear how this research is being applied in the context of a global pandemic. Group forms of exercise are not an option while social distancing restrictions are in place, can exercising with other people bring us special benefits? If so, can those benefits be matched if we use the internet to continue the social side of going to a gym or a class?

The YouTube link mentioned in this piece is here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4YhGgVzlQXjhq6UYbX7idSDYcPX5PRy9

Presented by Nick Margerrison with the Professor of Clinical Exercise Science, Anna Campbell, MBE, of Edinburgh Napier University and the director of CAN Rehab and the Professor of Prehabilitation Medicine, Sandy Jack, a consultant clinician scientist from The University of Southampton and University of Southampton NHS Foundation Trust .

For more information, in the UK, phone: 0808 808 00 00

email: [email protected]

Twitter: @macmillancancersupport