New study reveals who benefits most from exercise during breast cancer treatment
Being physically active isn’t just good for your heart, your mood and your waistline. Exercise also reduces your risk of getting a few different types of cancer.
We’ve known for a while that breast cancer risk is significantly reduced in people who exercise regularly – the same is true for colorectal cancer and endometrial cancer. New research has examined the effect of exercise during and after treatment on women with early breast cancer, and found that exercise prevents recurrence, but for some types of cancer more than others.
For women with early breast cancer
A breast cancer diagnosis often makes women consider their overall health. Many who were previously inactive start exercising, perhaps to prevent other health issues complicating the picture or to cope with the stress of treatment.
A new US study from Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital has investigated exercising after a breast cancer diagnosis in 6,211 patients, to see who benefits most from getting active during and after treatment. In this study, patients did 3-4 hours of moderate intensity exercise each week, an amount that’s been shown to reduce the risk of cancer. The researchers followed these women for over seven years, and tracked whose breast cancer came back, and whose didn’t.
Interestingly, exercise didn’t reduce the risk of recurrence in everyone. The women who gained the largest benefits from exercise were those with small (less than 2cm), ER+, PR+ and HER2- tumours.
While the researchers don’t know exactly why these women benefit from exercise more than others, the effect has been seen in other studies. In a separate analysis of almost 3,000 breast cancer patients, those who exercised for 4-5 hours per week were 50% less likely to experience breast cancer recurrence, but only if their tumour was ER+. For women with ER- tumours, exercise also decreased the risk of recurrence, but only by 9%.
Dr Lee Jones, one of the researchers that carried out the study, wants to stress the importance of exercise for everyone. He told Lancet Oncology that this study “does not mean that exercise is not beneficial for women with estrogen negative tumours – there is much more we need to learn, but this is an interesting first step.”
Join the PINC Rehab or Next Steps programme
Because we know how beneficial exercise can be for women with breast cancer, we fund women to take part in the PINC Rehab and Next Steps programmes. These are either individual or group sessions run by a certified cancer rehab physiotherapist.
You can see more details on our Cancer Rehab page, and if you’re interested in joining the programme, get in touch with our breast nurse on 0800 BC NURSE.