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Prevention of Breast Cancer in Women Aided by Vigorous Activity

Jun 14, 2009 by TacticularCancer.com

They also included vigorous activities such as aerobics, chopping wood, competitive tennis, cycling on hills, digging in the garden, fast dancing, heavy housework, heavy yard work, jogging quickly, running, scrubbing the floors and washing the windows.

Findings of Study

Overall, the participants of the study spent an average of 5.9 hours each day taking part in non-vigorous activities, and an average of 1.2 hours doing vigorous activities. By the end of 11 years, 1,506 of the women had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

The study found that the women who were the most active had a 13% lower risk of getting post-menopausal breast cancer, when compared with their least active counterparts.

A significant finding is that this difference was a lot more pronounced in women in the normal weight range (body mass index below 25). For this group, the difference in risk between the most active and least active women was 30%.

On the other hand, for women who were overweight or obese, there was no difference in risk between the most active and least active women.

“The association with physical activity was essentially limited to the leaner women,” said Dr Michael Leitzmann, leader of the study.

The Implications

One limitation of the study was that it only measured the level of physical activity once, which would not have given a very accurate reflection of the women’s level of physical activity over the whole period of the study. Even then, the study team still felt that physical activity in mid to late adulthood had an important influence on the risk of breast cancer.

And, from the findings of the study, we can probably draw two conclusions. Firstly, even for women who are in the normal weight range, a sedentary lifestyle is still a risk factor for breast cancer. Further, for overweight women, being physically more active did not seem to help.

The bottomline? If you are serious about averting breast cancer, you may want to watch your weight, and make sure you are getting enough vigorous exercise.

Main Source

Intense activity curbs breast cancer risk (http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=c4e29bc0-f117-4dbb-9f41-eaa9b2902708)

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