NERDBEEP

Walking Can Reduce Breast Cancer Risk

 Researchers credit vigorous exercise with
lowering risk for the disease by 25 percent.
New research published in the journal Cancer,
Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention shows
that exercise like walking may reduce a person’s
risk for cancer. The researchers found that
postmenopausal women who were very active or
walked for at least seven hours a week had a
reduced risk for breast cancer.
The researchers looked at a cohort of 73,615
postmenopausal women who reported their
physical activity and found that women who
participated in vigorous physical activity every
day had a 25% lower risk for breast cancer, and
women who walked for at least seven hours a
week had a 14% lower risk for breast cancer.
Given that 60% of women report some type of
daily walking, the researchers say promoting
walking as a leisure time activity can have
protective benefits for women. Even without any
other forms of exercise, women who walk had
higher chances of keeping breast cancer at
bay. Walking could be as beneficial to the body
than say running and swimming. Research
looking into the benefits of walking have shown
that talking a brisk walk can help lower the risk
for high blood pressure, high cholesterol
and diabetes.
Other emerging research has sown that exercise
may be as effective as medications in treating
common diseases like heart disease and
diabetes. A recent study published in the British
Medical Journal compared the effect of exercise
to drug therapy on four different health
outcomes: heart disease, recovery from stroke,
heart failure treatment and preventing diabetes.
The study reported that there were no
detectable differences between groups of
participants using exercise as therapy and
participants using medications when it came to
preventing diabetes and preventing additional
events for heart patients.
“We look at our lifestyle today, and we are more
and more sedentary as a population,” said Alpha
Patel, author of the breast cancer study and a
senior epidemiologist at the American Cancer
Society. “We are seeing what happens when we
introduce these activities into daily life. We
have more of an understanding about of the
role of physical activity and obesity as
it relates to cancer. Earlier research has shown
the benefits of exercise for diabetes
and obesity prevention, but we are learning
more and more about it’s influence on cancer,”
she says.
Federal experts recommend people exercise at a
moderate intensity for about 2.5 hours a week.
Fewer than half of Americans meet that
recommendation, and a third of Americans don’t
get any exercise at all.