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Breast
Cancer Patients Not Heeding Exercise Advice
Breast cancer patients are not sticking to prescribed diet
and exercise routines, even though working out and controlling
weight gain might help them avoid future bouts with the
disease.
That's the observation of a new study by researchers from
the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, along with
colleagues at the National Cancer Institute, the University
of New Mexico and the University of Southern California.
Their report appears in a recent issue of Cancer.
The new research explores how even women who were diligent
about working out before they were diagnosed with breast
cancer appear to let their routines slide after the disease
strikes.
"Most notable were the decreases in activity among
women who underwent surgery as well as chemotherapy and
radiation therapy, as well as the women who were obese or
overweight prior to diagnosis," says study author Melinda
Irwin, currently an assistant professor in the department
of epidemiology and public health at Yale School of Medicine.
The findings are important, says Irwin, because previous
studies show a lack of activity leads to weight gain, which
then increases the risk of cancer recurrence. This is particularly
true if women are overweight when they are diagnosed.
"If a woman is already overweight or obese when diagnosed
with breast cancer, the chance of having a recurrence within
five years is twofold over lean women, and the chance of
dying from breast cancer, over a 10-year period, is 60 percent
greater than lean women," Irwin says.
For breast cancer surgeon Dr. Jeanne Petrek, the study offers
an interesting observation. However, its real value may
not be realized until the women are followed and their cancer
prognosis can be linked to activity levels, she says.
"This is an early result, and it just tells us what
happened in the early months following diagnosis and treatment.
But what it doesn't tell us is whether these women were
able to lose the weight they gained, whether they regained
physical activity in one or two years, and if they did,
what would that mean to their prognosis," says Petrek,
director of the surgical program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center in New York City.
"These are the kinds of questions that must be answered
before this finding has true relevance," she adds.
The study involved 865 women diagnosed with breast cancer
within the previous four to 12 months. Each woman was asked
to recall how much she exercised in the year before her
breast cancer diagnosis, and how much she did in the previous
month, after diagnosis and treatment.
Researchers also investigated whether the level of activity
could be associated with the severity of their disease,
the type of treatment they received, as well as their age
and their body mass index -- a measurement of total body
fat.
The result: On average, each woman reported a two-hour weekly
decrease in activity from what they did before diagnosis.
Further, those who received the most dramatic treatments
-- surgery, combined with radiation and chemotherapy --
saw the greatest decline in exercise, with 50 percent less
activity than before their diagnosis. Women who had surgery
alone saw only a 24 percent drop in activity after breast
cancer.
The group who saw the greatest decrease in post-cancer activity
-- regardless of the type of treatment they received --
were obese women, who did 41 percent less exercise. Women
who were simply overweight were 36 percent less active,
while lean women did 24 percent less activity.
Although many of the women cited nausea and fatigue as the
reason behind their lack of exercise, Irwin says that, ironically,
it is physical activity that can do the most to relieve
those symptoms.
"Any exercise intervention after a cancer diagnosis
shows significant improvement in fatigue and nausea and
overall quality of life, including depression," Irwin
says. "If a woman didn't exercise before being diagnosed,
she should be counseled on the importance of starting an
exercise program after treatment; if she exercised before,
it's important that levels don't decrease after cancer."
You can also find information about weight and breast cancer
at Cornell
University's Program on Breast Cancer and Environmental
Risk Factors.
Article
Source: HealthDay
Article Author: Collette Bouchez
Net Reference 101
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