A recent study has indicated that the more exercise you do over your lifetime, the greater your reduction in breast cancer risk will be and that black women can reduce their risk to the same extent as white women. The lead author of the study, Dr. Leslie Bernstein from University of Southern California in Los Angeles has said “In general, I think you need to do 3 to 4 hours of exercise per week to see a strong protective effect.”
The study, which appears in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, was based upon a comparison of lifetime recreational exercise between a group of patients with breast cancer and a group without breast cancer. Approximately 1/3 of the study participants were black and the remainder was white. Not surprisingly, there was no statistical difference between black women and white women.
The good news is that as lifetime exercise rose, the risk of breast cancer fell. Compared to inactivity, annual lifetime exercise beyond an average level, reduced the risk of developing breast cancer by 20 percent.
More study is needed to determine how exercise reduces the risk of breast cancer, however, at this point it is another great reason to begin an exercise program and stick with it!
To read more about this interesting study, please see Exercise/Breast Cancer study
