Seen At 11: Doctor Says Exercise Could Hold The Key To Fighting Chronic Disease

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The next time you visit your doctor, he or she may write a prescription for the gym instead of the pharmacy.

That's because physical activity could potentially treat chronic and deadly diseases, even cancer.

Kristen Bouderau has always been very active.

"I grew up doing all sorts of sports," she said, "I'm a stage four metastatic breast cancer patient."

Exercising after a cancer diagnosis has never really been encouraged.

"Most of the advice as soon as someone is diagnosed is rest, take it easy, don't move," Dr. Lee Jones said.

Now, doctors are actually prescribing specific workouts for patients with chronic diseases.

"On the surface exercise can seem very simple, but under the surface, it's probably one of the most complex treatments because it impacts everything," Dr. Jones said.

As CBS2's Dr. Max Gomez explained, everything from our organs to our muscles and our hormones which require movement to function optimally.

"We're approaching exercise and developing exercise in the same way that we would develop drugs," Dr. Jones said.

Dr. Jones is an exercise scientist with Memorial Sloan Kettering.

He's overseeing eight clinical trials and said his overall goal is to have exercise specifically prescribed.

"We're getting away from that 'one size fits all' it could be dependent on the type of tumor that you have," he said.

Dr. Lee and his team work with genomics and cell biology experts to understand the precise ways that exercise affects the cells in various breast cancer patients.

"That helps us refine the right dose, and how to refine optimally and more safely," he said.

Bouderau has seen some improvement.

"Initially, my breathing is better. That is a huge advantage," she said.

But it's not her only goal.

"Longevity. I have a 12-year-old daughter," she said.

The research is leading to an emerging field called exercise oncology.

Figuring out the exact way exercise works could tell us a lot about how cancer forms and other ways to treat it.