From Bob Grant, The Scientist Magazine (April 1, 2020):

Prevention has been playing a growing role in other diseases, infectious and otherwise, long before this latest global pandemic. Cancer, the focus of this issue, is ubiquitous, and one would be hard pressed to find a person anywhere on Earth whose life wasn’t in some way touched by the complex and vexing malady. 

This cancer-focused issue features a cover story in which we explore one facet of cancer prevention: exercise. In this feature story, Danish researcher Bente Klarlund Pedersen explains that studies have shown frequent exercise to be useful in avoiding cancer as well as in helping cancer patients lessen the side effects of their cancers and treatments. Her research and that of others is seeking to enumerate the molecular and cellular mechanisms that underlie the benefits exercise seems to offer cancer patients. 

But when one considers the practical ripples that biology sends through societies—issues of public health and the shared goal of minimizing the impact of diseases on a global scale—human behavior and prevention become vitally important.

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