Moderate exercise found to help breast cancer patients recover (40% lower mortality)

[Rhinodawg]

http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Moderate-exercise-found-to-help-breast-cancer-5805452.php


While going through treatment for breast cancer, many women are nauseated, sore, hormonal and cranky — and exercising is not on the top of their to-do list.

But doctors are recommending that they prioritize it to increase their chances of beating breast cancer, improving their mood and making sure the cancer doesn’t return.

“The largest study to date followed survivors over five years and found that one to two hours of brisk walking per week was associated with 40 percent lower risk of death overall compared with those who were less active,” said Susan Brown, managing director of health and mission program education at Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

A 2011 meta-analysis of studies found that the mortality rate for breast cancer was 34 percent lower for women who were very active when compared with women with breast cancer who weren’t active.

[merrily]

1. Exercise and healthy nutrition are good to help prevent or cure so many conditions.

Yet, too much of the population persists in unhealthy lifestyles. Luckily, we are learning and changing.

[hedgehog]

2. Are people getting better because they are exercising, or are they able to exercise

because they are getting better?

[HereSince1628]

4. There is research evidence to suggest moderate exercise does stave off depression

which I suppose is part of the 'positive attitude' comment in the referenced paper.

This recent paper discusses a biochemical pathway that's involved in exercise's relationship with resilience to depression.

Leandro Z. Agudelo, Teresa Femenía, Funda Orhan, Margareta Porsmyr-Palmertz, Michel Goiny, Vicente Martinez-Redondo, Jorge C. Correia, Manizheh Izadi, Maria Bhat, Ina Schuppe-Koistinen, Amanda Pettersson, Duarte M. S. Ferreira, Anna Krook, Romain Barres, Juleen R. Zierath, Sophie Erhardt, Maria Lindskog, and Jorge L. Ruas. Skeletal Muscle PGC-1a1 Modulates Kynurenine Metabolism and Mediates Resilience to Stress-Induced Depression. Cell, September 2014

[hedgehog]

6. I think exercise may help stave off depression, but once you are in the midst of serious

clinical depression, getting the energy to walk across the room and turn on a light may take all the will power you have. That's why they call it depression.

[HereSince1628]

7. yes I think that's true...but it's also true that post-surgery

people are sometimes as motivated as they've every been to do things that contribute to their health.

[Rhinodawg]

8. +1000

[tanyev]

3. Healing Through Exercise by Jorg Blech makes similar claims for pretty much all illness.

Even light exercise helped patients heal faster. Interesting.

[hedgehog]

5. I agree that if a person is healing, some light exercise is more healthy than lying around in bed

losing muscle mass. On the other hand, we have to be careful that women who die of breast cancer aren't made to feel as they go down hill that it's their own fault for not exercising enough and/or not having a positive attitude.