Breast Cancer Patients Fail to Meet Physical Activity Guidelines

Women diagnosed with breast cancer can boost the quality of life by adhering to an exercise regime, but not all of them meet the required physical activity guidelines, researchers reveal.

The new finding documented in the journal Cancer, highlights the need to enhance the efforts to promote physical activity among patients diagnosed with breast cancer. It was noticed that despite the fact that physical activity helps improve quality of life, most women who were a part of the breast cancer study failed to meet the national physical activity guidelines.  

African-American women were 40 percent less likely to live up to the physical activity guidelines compared to white women.  Due to this they experience a higher mortality from breast cancer than other groups in the U.S.

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services including the American Cancer Society, it is necessary for the adults to adhere to at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity or at least 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity physical activity every week to receive the general health benefits and to manage the chronic disease.

"Because it's important to understand whether there is capacity for improvement in the physical activity levels of women with breast cancer," said Brionna Hair, a doctoral candidate in epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In this population-based study, the researchers assessed the pre and pro diagnosis physical activity levels in 1,735 women of ages 20-74 years all of whom were diagnosed with invasive breast cancer between 2008 and 2011 in 44 different counties of North Carolina.

On analyzing the data of the participants, they observed that just 35 percent of the breast cancer survivors adhered to the present physical activity guidelines post diagnosis. In 59 percent of the patients, the researchers noticed a drop in activity six months after being diagnosed. On an average they reduced the activity by 15 metabolic equivalent hours.

"Medical care providers should discuss the role physical activity plays in improving breast cancer outcomes with their patients, and strategies that may be successful in increasing physical activity among breast cancer patients need to be comprehensively evaluated and implemented," said Hair.