Vigorous Exercise Lowered the Risk of Breast Cancer in African-American Women

Adhering to regular exercise is tied with a significant drop in the rate of breast cancer among African-American women, a new study reveals.

Regular exercise is known as a crucial part of being healthy. Physical exercise benefits those with breast cancer. Previous studies have claimed that patients with breast cancer who do not receive sufficient exercise may compromise with their quality of life and eventually survival. Breast cancer is one of the most common types of cancer among American women. It affects 1 in every 8 women during their lives and is the second-leading type of killer cancer.

Highlighting the benefit of exercise is the new study led by researchers at the Boston University's Slone Epidemiology Center. They claim that regular exercise that includes brisk walking is known to decrease the incidence of breast cancer among African-American women. 

This finding is significant as there was no evidence available for it, among African-American women.

In this study, the researchers focused on the health of black women using data retrieved from the Black Women's Health Study (BWHS). They focused on information regarding exercise habits such as the amount of time they spent in exercises per week and the type of exercise they did. The study included over 44,000 African-American women over the span of 16 years and observed the participants to see if they developed breast cancer.

The researchers noticed that those women who adhered to vigorous exercise for seven or more hours every week had 25 percent reduced risk of developing breast cancer when compared to those who exercised less than one hour each week.

Vigorous exercises that the women followed included swimming, running, basketball and aerobics. The results were the same even if women indulged in brisk walking, but women walking at a normal pace did not receive any health benefits. The results remained the same and did not change by estrogen receptor status of the breast cancer.

Lynn Rosenberg, ScD, professor of Epidemiology at the Boston University School of Public Health and principal investigator of the Black Women's Health Study, states, "Although expert review panels have accepted a link between physical exercise and breast cancer incidence, most study participants have been white women. This is the first large scale study to support that vigorous exercise may decrease incidence of breast cancer in African American women."

The finding was documented in Cancer Epidemiology.