Exercise vs. Breast Cancer Risk
Exercise never seems like a bad thing, and, unless your workout involves being chased by a pack of rabid dogs, you can always use some. Here’s more good news. According to a new study exercising for five or more hours a week can cut women’s breast cancer risk in half. Emily Brown, Bloomberg of The Boston Globe reports:
Strenuous or moderate exercise from the teens to about age 50 reduces the risk of some types of breast cancer by as much as 55 percent, according to a study published in yesterday's issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. Previous studies asked women about current exercise habits and not activities over time.
"It's long-term activity that matters," Leslie Bernstein, one of the study's authors, said in an interview. "This may explain why asking women what they currently does not adequately capture physical activity relevant to breast cancer risk. It is really activity during reproductive years and into the early 50s in our study, which predicts breast cancer risk."
