Exercise Can Help You Prevent Breast Cancer

All cancers, including breast cancer, result from a lack of healthy functioning in the human biological organism. While most approaches to disease focus on attacking the direct symptoms of the problem – in this case, cancerous tumors – there is an alternative path to healing that focuses on improving the body’s overall state of health in totality. For those who favor this approach it is believed that as the body moves back toward optimal equilibrium, its natural systems will be strengthened, thereby restoring their ability to repair any damage that may have been done through disease or any other type of health disorder.

Exercise is one of the best methods for helping the body return to healthy functioning. However, while no one doubts the positive influence of exercise on the heart, or as a means to promote weight loss, the possibility of exercise being useful for the prevention of breast cancer was long considered a more questionable proposition in need of further proof. With the research that has now been completed, it seems safe to assert that exercise has indeed been proven to be effective in helping prevent the onset of breast cancer in a statistically significant way.

The protective effects of exercise depend to some extent on duration and intensity. However, it has been discovered that just walking alone is effective at reducing the rate of breast cancer. The most important aspect of exercise is that it must be practiced regularly to have an effect.

Studying the Exercise-Breast Cancer Connection
Obesity has been previously identified as a breast cancer risk factor, particularly in post-menopausal women. It has been speculated that the reason why exercise might be effective in breast cancer prevention is because it aids greatly in weight loss. A German study published in 2008, however, found that exercise reduced the risk of the disease independently of weight loss. One caveat to this study is that the reduced risk was determined to be only for estrogen-receptor positive breast cancers – which is still a significant finding since somewhere between 60 and 75% of all breast cancers are of this type.

One other interesting thing the German researchers discovered is that the risk reduction effects were actually greater in women past the age of 50. This dovetailed with an earlier Journal of the American Medical Association published report that found a 20% reduced risk for the disease in women who did not even start exercising until later in life. Just a half-hour’s brisk walk five times a week was enough to grant this much protection; but ten hours of exercise each week cut the risk by 30%.

The American College of Sports Medicine also performed a study that broke things down by age. While exercise for women under 30 did not show any breast cancer risk benefit, significant reductions in risk were found for women above the age of 30 who exercised more than the average amount – 60 minutes in total - each week. One review of 30 different studies that have been undertaken to more firmly establish the exercise-breast cancer risk reduction link found that exercising for three hours each week (with walking counted as a legitimate form of exercise) reduced breast cancer risk for all women by somewhere between 30 and 40%.