Think you're so overweight that losing a few pounds won't make any difference to your chances of having a recurrence of breast cancer? Well, think again.
A new study now suggests that breast-cancer survivors who both eat a healthy diet and exercise moderately can reduce their risk of dying from breast cancer by half — that's right, by half — regardless of their weight.
This tantalizing possibility has been brought to light by a new longitudinal study from the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego.
Previous studies regarding diet and exercise have looked at the impact of either one or the other on breast cancer survival, but not both, and so past results have been mixed.
"We demonstrate in this study of breast cancer survivors that, even if a woman is overweight, if she eats at least five servings of vegetables and fruits a day and walks briskly for 30 minutes, six days a week, her risk of death from her disease goes down by 50 percent," said the paper's first author, John Pierce, Ph.D. He's the director of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at the Moores UCSD Cancer Center, and he stressed, "The key is that you must do both."
The research demonstrated that only 16 percent of women who were obese were both physically active and had a healthy diet, compared to 30 percent in the rest of the study population. Even if they were obese, the women who were both physically active and had a healthy diet were much more likely to survive through the follow-up period than the rest of the study group.
The mortality rate of those who both ate healthy and exercised was 7 percent, approximately half of that of the rest of the study population.
"Of particular importance is that this halving of risk was seen in women who were not obese as well as in those who were obese," said co-author Cheryl Rock, Ph.D., R.D., of the Center's Cancer Prevention and Control Program. "Also, the effect was not seen in women who practiced only one of the lifestyle patterns — high vegetable and fruit intake, or physical activity."
So don't give up if you think that being active and eating right is fruitless if you are battling weight problems. There is real benefit, so keep it up!
