Can Physical Activity Reduce The Risk Of Breast Cancer?

Exercise pumps up the immune system and lowers estrogen levels. With as little as four hours of exercise per week, a woman can begin to lower her risk of breast cancer.


All women know exercise is helpful and beneficial to their health, but did you know exercise may also help women combat breast cancer?
Recent research suggests women who exercise regularly, even if that means simply walking for a few hours each week, may be as much as half as likely to die or suffer recurring breast cancer. Why?

Exercise and Breast Cancer

Researchers have known for a long time that exercise is important for our health and wellness. Exercise promotes longevity. It increases our heart or cardiovascular health. It improves pregnancy and labor outcomes.
Exercise is also helpful in combating diseases, including breast cancer. While many patients may not feel like exercising during treatment, exercise may be the key to their long-term survival.

A recent study conducted by the Brigham and Woman's Hospital suggests women that exercise regularly after a diagnosis of breast cancer may live longer than women who do not. This is true whether women exercised regularly or not before their diagnosis.

According to the study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, even small amounts of exercise are useful to any and all women with breast cancer. That means a woman that walks 30 minutes two times a week is going to have a higher chance of survival than a woman that does not walk at all.

This study should prove encouraging especially to women that feel they do not have enough energy to engage in vigorous activity during breast cancer treatment. While one hour a week of exercise does provide benefits however, these are markedly higher for women that can exercise between three to five hours each week.

Women, who do this, according to the BWH study, may reduce the risk of death from breast cancer by half.

Does this mean women should exercise even more? Not so according to researchers. Apparently, after reaching five hours of walking each week, no further benefits were noted in patients participating in this study, which involved 3,000 women studied for more than a decade.

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Kayla Wharton