Research shows that exercise is an important step in the prevention of breast cancer! There are many studies that show strong evidence that exercise lowers the risk of breast cancer (along with colon cancer, kidney cancer, bladder cancer, esophageal and stomach cancers!).
There is
also strong evidence that exercise reduces anxiety, depressive symptoms, and
fatigue in cancer patients. Studies
show that regular exercise reduces your risk of breast cancer by 20 – 30% with
a 38% reduced risk of invasive breast cancers.
Studies also
show that breast cancer patients with higher exercise levels have 29 – 41%
lower risk of dying from breast cancer.
How
Exercise Fights Cancer
Exercise has
direct and powerful effects on human physiology that directly lower cancer risk
including:
Improved
insulin sensitivity –
insulin resistance is directly linked to cancer growth and spread!
Improved
blood circulation
driving more oxygen into cells and helps the liver detoxify cancer causing
substances.
Improved
mitochondrial function – mitochondria are the energy factories of the cells and healthy
mitochondria are key to prevention of many chronic diseases including cancer.
Decreased
bodyfat levels –
excess bodyfat produces copious amounts of estrogen and being overweight is an
independent risk factor for breast cancer for this reason.
Improved
immune function – a
strong immune system is primed to recognize and destroy cancer cells before
they form tumors!
Time
Restricted Eating and Breast Cancer Prevention
Time
restricted eating is exactly what it sounds like: restricting your intake of food to a certain
period of time each day. Most
Americans eat something every two hours for 16 – 18 hours per day. Time restricted eating involves shortening
this “feeding window” to somewhere between 8 and 12 hours per day.
In the
course of our evolution humans spent hundreds of thousands of years without
constant access to food, and even as recently as the 50’s most people only ate
two times per day. Our bodies were not
designed to have constant food intake all day, every day and doing so causes
problems.
Every time
we eat we secrete insulin which is necessary to absorb nutrients into our cells. However frequent insulin secretion is one of
the reasons so many Americans develop insulin resistance which frequently
progresses to adult onset diabetes aka type 2 diabetes. Woman with type 2 diabetes have a 23% higher
risk for developing breast cancer and a 30.8% higher risk of breast cancer
mortality
There is
considerable research linking high evening/night-time calorie intake to
elevated insulin resistance and inflammation both which drive breast cancer.
Enter Time-Restricted Eating where you simply restrict calorie intake to 11 - 12 hours per day - ideally having your first meal early in the day and finishing your last meal 11 hours later. For example, an eating window of 7am - 6pm or 8am - 7pm. Research has shown that this simple step can dramatically improve insulin sensitivity and inflammation and lower breast cancer risk.
A recent
study analyzed data from the Women’s Healthy Eating and Living study and found
that breast cancer survivors who didn’t eat for at least 13 hours overnight had
a 36% reduction in the risk of recurrence and were 21% less likely to
experience breast cancer related mortality.
The proposed
mechanism is reduced insulin levels and improved insulin sensitivity, and this
makes perfect sense because elevated insulin levels and decreased insulin
levels are directly linked to cancer growth. Each 2-hour increase in nightly
fasting was linked to progressively lower hemoglobin A1C levels which is a sign
of improved insulin sensitivity.
An advantage
of time-restricted eating versus other dietary interventions like reduced
calorie intake is that it is very simple to perform. To learn more about time-restricted eating
(which is also referred to as “intermittent fasting”) check out this previous
blogpost on this subject: http://workoutanytime.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-benefits-of-intermittent-fasting.html
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