Latest Articles

News image

Insomnia and Short Sleep Duration Associated With Increased Mortality Risk

According to research, men with insomnia and sleep duration of six or fewer hours...

News image

Walnut Consumption Significantly Decreases LDL Cholesterol

Researchers have found that high-walnut-enriched diets significantly decreased total and LDL cholesterol for the...

News image

Dietary Fat Linked to Pancreatic Cancer

According to a study, high intake of dietary fats from red meat and dairy...

News image

New Evidence Why Repair of Myelin Fails in Multiple Sclerosis

Research has uncovered new evidence suggesting that damage to nerve cells in people with...

News image

Memory Test Helps Understand Parkinson's Disease Effect on Behavior

A new neuropsychological memory test developed by Dr. Mark Gluck, is helping to uncover...

News image

Patient Receives Cardiac Stem Cells in Clinical Trial

Doctors at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute have announced the completion of the first procedure...

News image

Mechanism for Amyloid Beta Protein's Toxic Impact in Alzheimer's

Researchers have uncovered a novel mechanism linking soluble amyloid β protein with the synaptic...

Most Read

News image

Vibration Plate Machines Could Aid Weight Loss and Shed Belly Fat

According to research, with proper use, vibration plate exercise machines could trim the particularly...

News image

Home UVB Therapy for Psoriasis as Effective as Hospital Treatment

A study has concluded that for patients with psoriasis, treatment with ultraviolet B (UVB)...

News image

3-D Images of Eyes Developed to Reveal Details of Macular Degeneration

To get a better look at the abnormalities that cause age-related macular degeneration, the...

News image

Resveratrol Could Have Applications for the Treatment of Obesity

Resveratrol, a compound present in grapes and red wine, has been reported to inhibit...

News image

Grape Seed Extract May Reduce Cognitive Decline in Alzheimer's

Researchers have found that a compound in grape seed extract reduces plaque formation and...

News image

Cherry Supplement Improves Pain and Function in Osteoarthritis

According to recent research, ground whole Montmorency tart cherries in pill form may be...

News image

Omega-3 Fatty Acids Reduce Risk of Advanced Prostate Cancer

According to a study by John S. Witte and colleagues, omega-3 fatty acids appear...

Vigorous Exercise Reduces Breast Cancer Risk E-mail
taebo
Normal-weight women who carry out lots of vigorous exercise are approximately 30% less likely to develop breast cancer than those who don't exercise vigorously. A study of more than thirty thousand postmenopausal American women, reported in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research, has revealed that a sedentary lifestyle can be a risk factor for breast cancer, even in women who are not overweight.

While an Investigator at the National Cancer Institute of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Michael F. Leitzmann led a team of researchers who followed the 32,269 women for eleven years and found that vigorous exercise may protect against breast cancer, independent of body weight control.

Vigorous exercise was judged to include running, fast jogging, competitive tennis; aerobics, bicycling on hills, and fast dancing.

Leitzmann said, "Notable strengths of our study include its large sample size, prospective design, high follow-up rate, and availability of relevant known or suspected breast cancer risk factors. These features enabled us to minimize any effects from other factors apart from exercise."
Interestingly, the authors found that non-vigorous exercise such as walking, hiking, light jogging, recreational tennis, and bowling was not protective.

Furthermore, vigorous exercise was only protective in lean women and not those who were overweight or obese. According to Leitzmann, "Possible mechanisms through which physical activity may protect against breast cancer that are independent of body mass include reduced exposure to growth factors, enhanced immune function, and decreased chronic inflammation, variables that are related both to greater physical activity and to lower breast cancer risk".

The authors added, "An alternative explanation for the stronger apparent effect of vigorous activity among lean over heavy women is that heavier women may misreport non-vigorous activities as vigorous ones".
References:
1. Michael F. Leitzmann,et al. Prospective study of physical activity and risk of postmenopausal breast cancer. Breast Cancer Research. October 2008. 
2. Image by jcrojas

Related Articles

Studies Suggest Role of Apples in Inhibiting Breast Cancer

News image

Six studies published in the past year by a Cornell researcher add to growing evidence that apples can help prevent breast cancer. In one of his recent papers, Rui Hai Liu reports that fresh apple extracts significantly inhibited the size of mammary tumors in rats, and the more extracts...

Prostate Cancer Therapy Increases Risk of Bone and Heart Side Effects

News image

Prostate cancer patients who undergo therapy to decrease testosterone levels increase their risk of developing bone and heart related side effects.   Medical treatments for prostate cancer that decrease testosterone levels, called androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) can cause a variety of side effects including skeletal and cardiovascular complications, sexual...

Anti Inflammatory and Anti Cancer Potential of Citrus Extract

News image

Researchers have discovered that 5-OH-HxMF (5-Hydroxy-3,6,7,8,3',4'-hexamethoxyflavone), a kind of polymethoxyflavone extracted from the Citrus genus, to be effective in inhibiting inflammation and neoplasia (abnormal proliferation of cells usually resulting in a tumor) in a mouse model. Polymethoxyflavones (PMFs), found exclusively in the Citrus genus, particularly in the peel of...

New Blood Test Increases the Accuracy of Prostate Cancer Diagnosis

News image

According to a study at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a new blood test used in combination with a conventional prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening sharply increases the accuracy of prostate cancer diagnosis, and could eliminate tens of thousands of unneeded, painful, and costly prostate biopsies annually. PSA is a protein...

An Antioxidant Component in Red Wine May Be Protective of Lung Cancer

News image

Moderate consumption of red wine may decrease the risk of lung cancer in men, according to the journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "An antioxidant component in red wine may be protective of lung cancer, particularly among smokers," said Chun Chao, Ph.D., a research scientist at Kaiser...