Originally published December 1 2005
Study shows exercise can protect black women against breast cancer
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
According to Dr. Leslie Bernstein, from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, black women can reduce their risk of breast cancer by exercising three to four hours per week.
With a few hours of exercise each week, black women can reduce their risk of breast cancer to the same extent that white women can, new research suggests.
"The results indicate that the more exercise you do over your lifetime, the greater your reduction in breast cancer risk will be," lead author Dr. Leslie Bernstein, from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, told Reuters Health.
"In general, I think you need to do 3 to 4 hours of exercise per week to see a strong protective effect."
"The results indicate that they glean as much benefit from physical activity as white women do."
The findings, which appear in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, are based on a comparison of lifetime recreational exercise between 4,538 patients with breast cancer and 4,649 women without breast cancer.
Roughly, a third of subjects in each group were black and the remainder was white.
As lifetime exercise activity rose, the risk of breast cancer fell, the report indicates, with no statistically significant difference noted between black and white women.
Compared with inactivity, annual lifetime exercise activity that exceeded the average level for active comparison subjects reduced their risk of developing breast cancer by 20 percent.
However, physical activity did not help prevent breast cancer in women who had a close relative with the malignancy.
On the other hand, the beneficial effect of exercise on breast cancer risk was not affected by disease stage, tumor type or other related factors.
As to how exercise reduces the risk or breast cancer, Bernstein said that the major hypothesis is that it involves changes in the hormones estrogen and progesterone.
"However, there are other possible mechanisms that are being explored," including changes in insulin and fats.
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