Breast Cancer and Exercise: Can Working Out Lower Your Risk?
Breast cancer occurs when cells in breast tissue become malignant (cancerous), forming tumors, affecting surrounding tissue, and potentially spreading to other parts of the body. It’s a serious disease that can be life-threatening, but there are steps you can take to lower your risk.
One of those actions is to get regular exercise. Women who exercise regularly have a notably lower breast cancer risk.
This article covers the link between breast cancer and exercise. It explains how being physically active reduces the chances of breast cancer and provides breast cancer exercise recommendations.
How Exercise Can Reduce the Chance of Breast Cancer
Exercise and breast cancer are linked in a few ways. Regular physical activity can be essential for weight management, and women who maintain a healthy weight have a lower breast cancer risk after menopause compared to those who are over their recommended weight.
Exercising may also lower blood estrogen levels. Women with lower blood estrogen levels have a lower breast cancer risk.
In addition, regular physical activity may boost the immune system and improve its ability to kill cancer cells or slow their growth.
Together, these connections between physical activity and breast cancer make a strong case for starting and maintaining an exercise program to help lower your risk.
How Much Do You Need to Exercise?
Regarding breast cancer and fitness, busy people may be glad to hear that you don’t have to build your life around physical activity to lower your risk. That’s especially true when you consider all the activities that can count as exercise.
The American Cancer Society recommends 150–300 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75–150 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity (or a combination of these) weekly. Striving to reach the upper limit of 300 minutes is best.
Exercising After a Breast Cancer Diagnosis
Researchers and healthcare providers increasingly see exercise not only as a way to lower breast cancer risk but also as an essential part of treating the disease. In fact, staying active during treatment may reduce your risk of breast cancer recurrence and of dying from the disease.
It can also help reduce the occurrence and frequency of side effects of treatment. This can include easing feelings of anxiety and depression, reducing bone and joint pain, lowering the risk of lymphedema, and improving sleep.
What Counts as Exercise?
When considering breast cancer and fitness, it’s crucial to remember that the goal is to be physically active regularly. If your preferred method of doing that is going to the gym, that’s great. But many other activities can count as exercise if you do them regularly, including:
- Walking your pet daily
- Parking farther from destinations
- Walking/biking rather than driving
- Forgoing elevators for stairs
- Fitting quick walks into your day
- Taking active vacations
When it comes to avoiding breast cancer, every “workout” is beneficial.
Discover More Resources from Baptist Health
Knowledge is the key to reducing the risk of breast cancer. The Baptist Health website has a variety of resources, including information on different forms of the disease, blog posts on treatment options, and much more. We encourage you to check them out.
Your Baptist Health provider can also answer questions you may have on topics like your breast cancer risk, breast cancer and diet/exercise, breast cancer symptoms and others. If you don't have a provider, you can find one on our online provider directory.
Next Steps and Helpful Resources
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