The Importance of Exercise for Cancer Prevention and Recurrence

According to Mayo Clinic, “exercise benefits every part of your body, it helps you feel better, have more energy, and contributes to your life expectancy.” (Mayo, 2011).

This manuscript is about the impact of participation in a community based exercise program on sleep quality in breast cancer survivors. While this is an important topic and the authors did a great job in describing the intervention, there are still a few issues that need to be addressed.

*A person being physically active for at least 7 hours a week have a 40% lower risk of dying early than those who were active less than 30 minutes a week. (Division of Nutrition and Obesity, June, 2015)

Since cancer is a multifactor disease, there is not a specific cause for the development of it, and there is not a specific way of preventing it. However, since 30 to 40 % of cancers are influenced by diet, it make a lot of sense to follow diets are thought to be protective against cancer. Some of the characteristics of theses diets are:

If you're at increased risk of developing the condition, some treatments are available to reduce the risk. Studies have looked at the link between breast cancer and diet and, although there are no definite conclusions, there are benefits for women who maintain a healthy weight, exercise regularly and who have a low intake of saturated fat and alcohol. It's been suggested that regular exercise can reduce your risk of breast cancer by as much as a third. If you've been through the menopause, it's particularly important that you're not overweight or obese.

Three specific benefits that exercise plays in my fight against cancer are improved mood, improved self-esteem, and decreased body fat. All of these things are very important to my health and wellness. Luckily, with enough exercise each day my body will continue to benefit from not only these three things but many others. On the diet and cancer exercise I scored an 11 for the 3 days combined but did not score the goal amount for women each day. This is not good because I should be getting the recommended amounts of cancer fighting fruits and vegetables each day. On the skin cancer risk assessment I scored a nine which means I am at a very high risk of developing skin cancer from UV radiation. I am constantly in the sun in the summer. I work

Physical activity. Increased physical activity has many benefits to the average human, however, for women it is postulated to reduce breast cancer risk. Although the exact mechanism is unknown, it is thought to do so “through hormonal influences, such as reducing serum estrogens, insulin, and insulin growth factor-1 levels” (Chen, 2013). In another recent review, it was “estimated that risk of breast cancer was reduced by 25 percent among physically active women compared with women who were the least active” (Lynch, 2011).

2) There is a significant decline in physical activity levels in women after they receive the diagnosis of breast cancer.2

Physical activity is a dose-response relationship with physical activity decreasing risk of breast cancer around 25%. Higher risk reductions were associated with vigorous activity, and doing physical activity later in life.

Exercising regularly should be very important to a woman that wants to stay fit, healthy, and most importantly away from breast cancer. There is not enough evidence to conclude that exercise can directly reduce the risk of breast cancer; but it helps by creating things that will. According to the book 100 Questions & Answers About Breast Cancer (100 Questions & Answers), exercise helps “reduce estrogen levels,” (estrogen is the cause for 80% of cancer in the breast), “fights obesity, lowers insulin levels, boost the immune system…”, and all those things help decrease the risk of breast cancer. Exercise is

Physical activity has been proven to have phenomenal benefits on the human body and is an important part of a balanced lifestyle. Statistics have shown that regular exercise can prevent illness and lower one’s likelihood of being diagnosed with a series of diseases significantly. It has been ‘medically proven’ that regular exercise can reduce a subject’s chance of being diagnosed with coronary heart disease or stroke by 35%, type two diabetes by 50%, colon cancer by 50%, breast cancer by 20%, early death by 30%, osteoarthritis by 83% and a number of other life threatening illnesses. Regular exercise can improve a person’s overall wellbeing and immunity to common illnesses. During physical activity, a person’s heart rate can increase significantly and allow more oxygenated blood to be supplied to muscles. A person’s breathing rate can increase during exercise and supply more oxygen to the lungs. The increased blood flow during exercise allows the brain to function better. Exercise has many benefits to the human body and is a major factor of disease

The fever, aches, pains, weakness and the feeling of death nearby comes by as one never expects it, and this is called cancer. It has become an epidemic as statistics show an increase of deaths from this horrible disease throughout the years. There are many organizations that support the development of new treatments and strategies to decrease these numbers. Although, this battle has been going on for a long time, there is one thing that always has shown to benefit people. As we take a look through medical/scientific research, we can understand the relation between physical activity and cancer.

Adults should have around thirty to sixty minutes of physical activity four to six times a week. Two hours and thirty minutes is the minimum a fully developed person needs to lessen the risk of having some type of chronic disease later in life (“Information”).

Men according to the American Diabetes Association (2013) "have a slightly higher risk of diabetes than women." It is also important to note that in comparison to women, men have a higher risk of developing central obesity (Rakel and Rakel, 2011). In basic terms, central obesity is the presence of excess abdominal fat. High blood pressure is yet another disease which according to Rhoden and Schein (2010) is much more frequent in men below the age of 55 than in women within the same age bracket. Regular exercise plays a critical role in the prevention of high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes. Keeping fit could also help keep prostate cancer at bay. As the American Cancer Society (2013) points out, "other than skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer in American men." Men who exercise regularly have a reduced risk of suffering from this particular disease. In addition to helping in the prevention of cancer, exercise according to Rosenbaum, Spiegel, Fobair, and Gautier (2007) also plays a role in the detection of cancer. In that regard, the relevance of regular exercises for men cannot be overstated.

Obesity can lead to a number of serious health problems, including heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and some types of cancer. One method that can help a person lose weight is to limit the number of calories taken in through their diet. The other way is to burn extra calories with exercise. Combining exercise with a healthy diet is a more effective way to lose weight than depending on calorie restriction alone. Exercise can prevent or even reverse the effects of certain diseases. Exercise lowers blood pressure and cholesterol, which may prevent a heart attack. If you exercise, you lower your risk of developing certain types of cancers such as colon and breast cancer. Exercise is also known to help contribute to a sense of confidence and