SATURDAY STRENGTH - Does Walking Help Breast Cancer Survivors?

Information was taken from an article entitled... "Role of Obesity and Exercise in Breast Cancer Survivors" April 9, 2010:
Holmes and colleagues examined data from 2,987 nurses in the Nurses Health Study diagnosed with stage I, II, or III breast cancers and looked at breast cancer mortality in relation to physical activity level. The study showed that woman engaged in at least 3 metabolic equivalents (MET) of exercise per week had a relative risk of death from breast cancer of 0.80 (95% CI = 0.60–1.06), while those with 9 to 14.0 MET/wk had a relative risk of 0.50 (95% CI = 0.31–0.82). Adjusted for other risk factors, the relative risk of death from breast cancer and the risk of breast cancer recurrence was 25% to 40% lower in women with the highest level of activity, compared to women with the lowest levels of activity. Of note, most of the benefit was seen in women with moderate activity, equivalent to walking 3 to 5 hours a week at an average pace of 2 to 2.9 mph. Patients who were ER- and PR-positive appeared to benefit the most from exercise.


To read the full article, see http://www.cancernetwork.com/display/article/10165/1552213

Challenge for this week: try to get at least 30 minutes of walking on each day this next week. The study above shows that walking at a moderate rate really does help!