Fitness May Lower Breast Cancer Risk

So does this mean that if you are not naturally athletic, just give up? I mean, I work hard to overcome my genetic predisposition to inertia and unathletic-ness. I've exercised daily from the age of 18, but is it all for naught because I come from bad genetic stock?

What is the definition of fitness?

This study was in RATS! The headline needs to state that instead of suggesting that these results directly apply to humans. The advice to exercise is great - we know it has many health benefits. But health/medical reporters need to do a better job of keeping these studies in perspective.

Let's bottom line it gang. The more healthy a life you live up to a certain point will make it more like you will live longer. Ditto on the opposite extreme re a less healthy life. This has been known since modern history has become i.e.like with the Olympic Games in Athens.

Curious as to what is the “chemical known to be potent breast cancer trigger “. Anyone?

If I read one more syllable about exercise and breast cancer I will just scream. A non-smoker, non-drinker, runner of 6-7 miles daily for 32 years, never once heavier than the light side of normal on the BMI, I got triple-negative breast cancer at age 58. So pink yourselves silly.

Research like this makes me nuts. It's not telling us anything new and I doubt it will prevent anyone from getting breast cancer. I am 43, exercise 4+ hours a week with cardio, interval training and running. I weigh 115 lbs; my diet is 100% organic, lean proteins, and zero refined sugars. I've never smoked, I don't have the BRCA genes, and have zero family history of any type of cancer. Despite all of this, I was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer last year, had bilateral mastectomies, chemo and tamoxifen. Yes, you can say I'm an anomaly but I know far too many "healthy" women who have BC. Instead of focusing on stuff like this, why not figure out why healthy people get cancer and more importantly how to prevent it in everyone? It breaks my heart that one more person on this planet has to go through a BC diagnosis but unfortunately, statistics show a huge percentage of women will and no amount of exercise can avoid that.

Folks, this is how science is done. It's slow. It's incremental. A lot of studies with questionable applicability to your daily life. But over time, and with persistence, there are major breakthroughs. There are no short cuts. If we knew what they are, we would have taken them by now, and solved all the world's problems. Many important studies would not be news to you (although don't know if this one will end up being one.)

by now haven't we seen that fitness pretty much lowers risk of any disease? why these one off micro-studies. there really are other more effective ways to leverage shrinking research dollars- I say this having spent my entire adulthood at academic institutions, and still there.

I know the NYT has to fill its Health pages every week but that doesn't mean it has to publish pieces that only infuriate. Next week, there will be an article about how exercise really doesn't alter cancer risk factors. What's next? A healthy diet is good for you?

I work for a Hospice and Palliative care center in Hyderabad, India. Perhaps, the largest group which benefits from our services are terminally ill cancer patients. In my 3 years stint, I have come across breast cancer patients of all age groups with healthy, not so healthy and very unhealthy lifestyle. In my observations, exercise, no exercise can never be a 100% preventive mechanism for cancer or any disease. It depends largely on the genes, environment and other unknown factors. However, the occurrence of Breast Cancer in our hospice is more prominent among single, unmarried women without any children. I am not sure if its backed by any scientific evidence or not but this should be one of the areas of research in future cancer studies.

Whatever reasons one may agree or disagree with this research one thing for sure that exercise is good for you. Any motivation to exercise is good. I sent this to my wife. I am sure risk of cancer is so scary that this will definitely motivate her to go for a run on daily basis. Thanks

Right now I can only laugh at this. I'm a a serious athlete and and spend 10-12 hours a week working out. Just diagnosed with breast cancer this week. So, you haven't convinced me.

I am naturally fit and was diagnosed with breast cancer in my 30's and love the research. It's confusing to think through the multiple variables at play and try to guess which should be my focus (alcohol, stress, sugar, exercise). While initially willing to make huge lifestyle changes, now 40, I'm also not ready to be entirely without vice (perhaps due to cautious optimism regarding how long I would be giving things up for....) There can be a reaction when told you can't have something that makes you want it more. The behavioral psychology aspects to long term behavior change warrant as much attention as the drivers of cell mutation themselves.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in June 2014. It had been found on a mammogram back in 1999. I declined a biopsy at that time, & went back to living my life, which includes a strong a daily yoga practice. By June 2014, it had eaten it's way out of my body & onto the skin of the breast. You may say I'm an idiot, however, I believe that yoga has kept my cancer from going into my lymph nodes. Once again, I declined PET scan, biopsy, & surgery. Last thing my oncologist said to me at the end of that first visit: Keep up the exercise. We think it can change the DNA. Heard and done. I also meditate daily and haven't touched soy in 2-1/2 years.

I love the way we use the word "MAY" lower. Having a breast cancel survivor in my family makes me real angry that we understand how the break cancer spreads without any scientific proof. we know more but does the knowledge provide us with answers to preempt it .. definitely not. Please stop selling wares and services totally unrelated and giving false hopes to our women, its really cruel.

As a breast cancer survivor, I resent these studies. Of course fitness is good for health but I don't buy the correlation. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 42, I swam an three days per week for an your and walked four days per week for 3.5 miles plus had a daily yoga regimen. Certainly it helped me manage chemo, but that's it folks.

There always seems to be backlash when these studies are published. Maybe because the study is trying to isolate specific 'healthy lifestyle' traits. But - for me - the takeaway is healthy all the way around.. mental and physical health. A well rounded lifestyle that has moderate exercise, social support and stimulation, rest, healthy foods.. It's not one thing.. I always say.. try to use your body in the way it was intended.. and that body has a brain and muscles, and organs..etc. And stay away from chemicals as much as possible. That's my takeaway. Typically these studies get met with people who have followed A and B (let's say, slim and fit).. but possibly they are stressed out from a bad relationship or something. The body is complicated.. And then people use the term 'victim shaming' OMG.. I think the takeaway is that generally it pays to take care of this wonderful body we've been given.

This was not a "Aha!" moment. It was a "Duh!" comment by the medical community. EXERCISE REDUCES THE CHANCE OF ANY PHYSICAL OR MENTAL MALADY.

Being fit is not a magic bullet, but it sure beats the alternative.

People who want to avoid this disease should be tested for Brca1 and Brca2.

Reading all the complaints in the comments of nearly every article I read makes me tired. I realize this study leaves more questions than it answers, but as a breast cancer survivor, the daughter a mother than didn't survive breast cancer, and a scientist, I'll do most anything to that has the potential of lowering my risk of recurrence. After cancer, I took up training for marathons and have completed 96 marathons and ultra-marathons since 2008. While I can't be sure marathon training will lower my risk, I am sure that it has introduced me to a new world of fun, new friends, good health, and the list goes on. I wish readers would these article for what they are worth to their personal lives and be sparer with the negative comments.

"Most of us are likely to be able to raise our particular innate fitness capacity with exercise," says the lead author of the study. Is this why I did not seem to have any symptoms of asbestos related cancer as I, a fresh engineer, stood next to the sheets of corrugated asbestos sheets as labourers cut it to different shapes and sized on the construction sites in Pakistan in the sixties when the material was considered as harmless as smoking.

Physical activity helps in amyriad of ways, let's just do it because it FEELS good. The health is the bonus!

I've been a runner/regular exerciser for most of my 50 years (multiple marathons, half marathons, a few ultra marathons, lift weights, practice yoga, etc). I was diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer 3 years ago. No family history, never smoked, eat pretty well and maintain a decent diet. None of my doctors have been able to point to one "cause." However, my lifestyle my have prevented me from a higher stage, more aggressive cancer. There are so many unknowns -- bottom line, do what you can to minimoze risk but there are no guarantees.

Other than identifying a possible nonmodifiable risk factor for cancer this study seems to have little utility.

While it's certainly a good idea for all of us to exercise, the conclusions of this article are misleading. The cited study "Inherent aerobic capacity-dependent differences in breast carcinogenesis " asked whether cancer risk is mediated by hereditary fitness - and found, for rats exposed to an environmental carcinogen, the answer was yes. However, there is no indication that if the hereditary low fitness rats had adopted a treadmill habit their cancer risk would have decreased. Although it might have, all we can conclude from this study is that the low fitness rats should have chosen better parents.

Unfortunately mTOR pathway Ms. Reynolds wrote about is the downstream event like other nuclear gene expressions (mainstream theory) after damage to mitochondria by many carcinogens, though excess intake of ananimal protein also triggers mTOR pathway (Dr. Mercola, book "Fat for Fuel" and Dr. Gundry, a book "Plant Paradox"), as mentioned here by Dr. D'Agostino, a colleague of Dr. Thomas Seyfield of Boston College, "Cancer is the mitochondrial metabolic disease, not gene mutation disease".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LDc5TxOcvA
However, exercise, calorie restriction or high-fat and low-cabs diet will lower high level of insulin and also high level of blood sugar, No.1 cause of many mitochondrial metabolic diseases like cancer, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6lkRXaQKwk&t=2369satherosclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, obese, fat liver, atherosclerosis etc. High level of insulin and blood sugar cause chronic inflammation all over of our body. (Dr. Hyman, Dr. Perlmutter and many other functional medicine doctors)

Most important question - how do you know your innate fitness level??

What about all the hormone disruptors around us? Imbibed from a young age? In plastics? Hormones in diary?

As long as current fatalistic dogma that cancer is caused by gene mutation continues, it is difficult for the general public to go into the cancer prevention efforts. Instead, new theory, "cancer is caused by mitochondrial metabolic impairment" may help the general public to enter into cancer prevention. This is one of the reasons why many readers are put off by the article like written by Ms. Reynolds. Please listen to Dr. Thomas Seyfried, researcher at Boston College, saying, "Cancer is the mitochondrial metabolic disease, not the fatalistic gene disease."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXWE8vQB0eA
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3941741/

As Ms. Reynolds writes, exercise will make us healthy. Dr. David Perlmutter, a neurologist, says, exercise lowers our insulin resistance level as well as blood glucose level. It also triggers Nrf2 pathway to produce more antioxidants to trap excess free radicals that damage mitochondria, cells, tissues and organs.
We have to make our mitochondria healthy in order to prevent excess free radical production. Other than exercise, vitamin C, E, A, D,vegetables/ berries & fruits with lower glycemic load, omega-3 fats, coconut oil, olive oil, low-carbs and high-fat diet, prebiotic foods like taro, yucca or plantain, probiotic supplements, sulfur containing vegetables, alkali foods will all help. In order to minimize inflammation, we had better be careful about environmental contamination, plant toxins, excess taking of medicines.

"Of course, this study involved rats, which are not people."

Of course, people who are fit are at a lower risk for breast cancer . . . and cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, gout, ingrown hairs, EVERY malady - seriously, people who take care of themselves, who act and eat mindfully, respect and love their bodies, are typically the ones who live the longest.

Just ask any rat!

Boy is this a misleading headline. The study says if rats are born with genes that naturally make them fit WITHOUT EXERCISE, they are less likely to get breast cancer.

There is one line in the article that says working out could raise your fitness, but in the study exercise was not a factor. So while exercise certainly can raise your fitness, the article cites no evidence that raising your fitness through exercise could lower your breast cancer risk. In fact, to me it seems to suggest otherwise.

I myself adore working out, I'm not arguing against exercise, just potentially misleading broad causal conclusions extrapolating beyond a simple correlation in a study.

How much longer before another study comes along to contradict this one?

By all means, do what you can to minimize your own risk, but at the same time recognize that the risk will always be there -- because of genetics, environment, and other factors beyond one's control. These types of stories, to me, are the equivalents of the magical thinking that "If I do this, this, and this, I won't get cancer." If only that were so.

I am so tired of all these studies that focus on drinking and exercise, which are the visible, tangible inputs that people latch on to to try and explain cancer. THEY DON'T. Or at most they explain such a tiny fraction of why cancer begins and develops.

Can't we put our efforts and dollars onto understanding the complex cellular, genetic and chemical interactions that result in cancer? And what was the known carcinogen that these rats were "blasted" with - that was the cause of their cancer, not their innate fitness levels.

I know several women who never smoked anything and rarely drank and who ate well and eliminated sugar from their diets. They both had cystic breasts and had state 1 breast cancer which was treated. These slender women patronized the daily gym; I do not believe in the fitness theory. I think it is environmental in many cases where there is no familial history of breast cancer.