In his talk Exercise is Medicine, Exercise and Sports Science foundation professor Rob Newton will explain how exercise can increase longevity and quality of life for people suffering from diseases such as cancer.
"What we are discovering is that exercise can be prescribed in many different ways to produce chemical and structural changes in the body to reverse disease processes," Professor Newton said.
"One area that exercise has produced particularly good results is in reducing the negative side-effects caused by chemo, radiation and hormone therapies for cancer patients.
"Appropriate exercise medicine prescribed for people with cancer can produce 20 to 60 per cent improvement in survival, which is of similar magnitude to many modern chemo or radiation treatments."
Get in front of tomorrow's news for FREE
Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.
READ NOW
Professor Newton said there was also emerging evidence that exercise medicine could suppress the growth of cancer tumours.
"If we can determine the biological processes by which exercise inhibits or destroys cancer cells we will be able to more effectively prescribe exercise medicine and the knowledge gained could be invaluable," he said.