A new study has revealed that continuing to maintain a health lifestyle and regular exercise increases the chances of survival in breast cancer by a whooping 50 percent.
Dr. Michelle Holmes, a cancer researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, says, "Women with breast cancer who exercise at moderate intensity for 30 or more minutes per day for five or more days per week survive longer."
These findings are based on observations on 2,987 women diagnosed with breast cancer from 1984 to 1998. These women answered questionnaires twice a year, until their death or June 2002, whichever came first. All women were registered in the Nurses Health Study of cancer and heart disease risk factors. In the present study, around 50 percent of the women reported that they got upto three hours of walking/exercise per week. The study found that women who were active were 37 percent less likely to succumb to the disease than inactive ones.
Walking appeared to provide an increased benefit in women whose tumors had receptors for estrogen and progesterone. The study authors say that walking lowers the blood levels of hormones linked to these tumors and thus benefits the patients.
"Women with breast cancer have little to lose and much to gain from exercise. This is good news for women with breast cancer," Dr Holmes who led the team of researchers pointed out. Dr Holmes said that women tended to decrease their activity after treatment and hence started to gain weight. Exercise, she said, was one of the best ways to counter this problem.
Debbie Saslow of the American Cancer Society was highly encouraged by these findings, "This is exciting. Women are always asking, 'What can I do?' This is saying, 'There's something women can do that doesn't involve drugs and side effects,' " she said.
Rachel Ballard-Barbash of the National Cancer Institute, agreed, "We have a growing field of research on the role of these lifestyle factors on cancer quality of life after diagnosis and now, just beginning, on their potential effect on cancer survival and prognosis. This study is one of the first to have really looked at the outcome such as survival or development of new cancer after initial cancer diagnosis," she said.
The study concludes by saying, " Women with breast cancer who follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations for all individuals in the United States to exercise at moderate intensity for 30 or more minutes per day for 5 or more days per week may survive longer."
Details of the study are available in today's issue of the Journal of American Medical Association.
