Living With CLL | The Benefits of Exercise

Transcript

Jamie Forward:

A recent paper reported significant lower rates of AFib for patients on BTK inhibitors and GLP-1 agonists. What are the potential benefits of GLP-1 agonist for the CLL patient? Could there be a favorable improvement in the microenvironment that may discourage CLL growth?

Dr. Alessandra Ferrajoli:

I can take this. I mean I’m not aware of any specific research that has demonstrated any [inaudible] [00:39:54] action; however, we do have a lot of experience with exercise. And the benefit that exercise does to patients with CLL not only improves the performance by reducing the level of fatigue, but it also helps the immune system, and we see better T-cell function and therefore it seems to be beneficial.

And by reflection, we have added it to our initiative for CLL that focus not only on exercise, but also on diet and maintaining a body weight that is as ideal as possible, and we have seen a significant improvement in the patients that have been able to achieve those goals. So, I think I see those medications, at least the present time, as tools that can help the patient to reach a body weight that allows them to be more active.

And therefore, by being more active, there is a lot of benefit, not only in your cardiovascular system, but there is also a benefit from an immunological point of view and also from a point of view of any symptoms like fatigue that may be associated with your disease.

But I’ll be interested in seeing if Dr. Wierda has anything to add to this.

Dr. William Wierda:

I don’t. I’m glad you took that question. That was a great answer. I liked it.

Dr. Alessandra Ferrajoli:

So far, we’ve only had one patient that had an immune-mediated reduction in the number of platelets after starting one of those GLP-1 inhibitors. And many patients are using those agents. So, they seem to be reasonably safe.