Greater Survival After Breast Cancer in Physically Active Wo
Greater Survival After Breast Cancer in Physically Active Wo My husband was excited when he heard about this study on the radio, but it isn’t on the BBC website.
According to this study, women who ate 5 portions of fruit and veg a day and walked briskly for 30 minutes six days a week had half the recurrences of women with less healthy life styles. The effect was stronger in ER positive cancers. There was no effect if women didn’t do both things. Only 1/3 of non-obese patients and 1/6 of obese patients in the study did both things.
A news story on the study:
sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070609112941.htm
The abstract:
jco.ascopubs.org/cgi/content/abstract/25/17/2345
A great reason to tuck into some strawberries, as if an excuse was ever needed.
Hi,
I actually read this in the Daily Mail newspaper today. Anything we can can do to stop this disease coming back later on has got to be worth a try!!!
SusieX
Thanks Christine Just read the abstract and actually it sounds like there wasn’t that much difference in disease free survival and anyway the study only applied to early stage breast cancer (Stages 1 and 2.) and one would expect good survival rates these days from early stage breast cancer.
Actually this stuff makes me yawn…as it happens I don’t think there’s much I can do to make much difference to what happens to the progression of my cancer. I did by the way eat more than 5 fruit and veg a day in the well time I had before regional recurrence AND did more walking than I’d ever done in my life. Did it because yes it feels good…
biut then I drank wine, ate cheese and ice cream as well…oh dear! And I’m triple negative, diagnosed at Stage 3, and think if ‘they’ spent as much money on researching solid causes of and treatments for my cancer as they do on making judgements about my diet we might be getting somewhere.
Moi…bitter…you guessed it!
Jane
bit ore info Just read the longer article: 1490 women in teh study. 7% of those doing the diet and exercise died. 14% of those not doing it died. So thats where the 50% comes in. So 79% of the rest lived and we can perhaps extrapolate from that the diet made no difference to them.
And as I said in my last post study these were ‘early stage’ (1 and 2) breast cancers.
Another lesson in how 50% can sound bigger than it is.
Jane
Distinguishing proper research and dodgy speculation My earlier post was not intended to imply that the research Christine has mentioned is invalid. Far from it: this seems to be a properly conducted piece of resaerch, reported in a peer reviewed journal.
My slightly grumpy post was just to point out that it applies only to early stage 1 and 2 breast cancer and also to question whether such reserach is really the most useful way forward. Also to point out that though 50% sounds a lot when you look at the actual numbers it doesn’t mean as much as perhaps it sounds. And finally that I think the way such research is reported can have a kind of self blanming and guilt inducing impact on women who have enough to cope with having got breast cancer in the first place.
But I do not dispute there have been quite a lot of properly conducted research stiudies showing that both exercise and low fat diet may lead to slightly reduced reates of recurrence (though the studies are contradictory particualrly when reporting on differences between er-/pr- and er+pr+ cancers.)
By contrast: I’m not sure who told you Fee that badly fitting bras can cause breast cancer because there is no research that i know of showing such a link. This is as far as I am concerned in the same category as inaccurate stories about knocks causing breast cancer…they don’t, and nor do ill fitting bras though there are many good reasons to do with comfort and back pain for having a properly fitting bra.
Please do correct me anyone if you know of research relating to ill fitting bras.
best wishes
Jane
Still 7 out of 100 is something As someone who has had alot of treatment, I would add that there are alot of less pleasant ways to get a 7 percentage point improvement that eating some fruit and veg and taking some walks. Ok, maybe it only helps 7 out of 100 women, but herceptin was huge news because it prevented recurrence in 15 out of 100 women who would have recurred. The absolute numbers are always going to be small.
I brought this up mainly because there is some science behind it, but also it is something that seems doable and shows that taking care of yourself can be worth it. And, of course, many women did nothing and lived, but the women who ate 5 fruit and veg and walked weren’t harmed by it. There are other proven health benefits as well to doing these things. If anything, breast cancer survivors tend to be more prone to things like heart problems because of some of the treatments, so it is important for us to take good general care of ourselves.
I never meant to cast aspersions on anyone who has recurred. So far there has been no big trial in which a treatment (conventional or diet) has worked on everyone. For the most part, surviving breast cancer is luck: whether you have the mutations that are going to respond to the treatment available.
Well,I’ll keep walking as much as I can and sticking to a low fat diet because as you say it ‘costs nothing’, improves my general health and makes me feel happy that I’m doing my bit to help keep ‘it’ at bay …and being triple neg that’s important to me! (7% adds up to a lota people!!)
more One of Christine’ s links also takes you to a very interesting commentary on the methodology, issues and problems with this research.
I think we all know that 5 fruit/veggies a day is a GOOD THING and that exercise is a GOOD THING. Also I think there are some very complex yet uknown relationships between a whole range of ‘lifestyle’, environmental and gentic factors.
I go for balanced diet and a balanced life and that includes trying for my fruit and veggies as well as other food which gives me pleasure. And i’ve been in training for the 5km Race for Life for a while though anticipate it will be a very slow walk if at all for me this time.
By the way the research also shows that being obese makes no difference if you do your veggies and exercise…but then obese people more likely not to do so and also more likely apparently to give up early on chemo and tamoxifen…(while the good people who eat their fruit and veggies more likely also to have been diligent with their tamoxifen…which could explain their better survival rates in this study…and so it goes on.)
Yes there’s a link but precisely what it is we don’t know for sure yet.
Jane
Yes, this is preliminary In that the women were not randomised into different groups, so there could have been the differences between groups, as Jane points out. Anyway, a trial with selective intervention is planned. I guess the only ethic way to do this would be to take some non-veg eating, sedentary patients and selectively intervene, not to take the veg off the healthy eaters!
Still, I for one don’t want to take the risk of waiting until the final results are in. I for one am pretty good about veg, but not so consistent about brisk walking, so this is just the sort of incentive I need and I figure that it is unlikely to do me harm.
As for research on the causes, there is quite a bit, but there will always be a need for things to cut down because the sources are numerous and, to some extent people make choices for other reasons that up there risk. For example, regular drinking and HRT both increase the risk of breast cancer, but alot of women would do these things anyway.