By: Laurie Edwards for Fibroids1For breast cancer survivors, aerobic exercise isn’t the only tool available to aid in their recovery. According to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues at the University of Minnesota, women seeking to improve their strength and stamina as well as their quality of life following treatment for breast cancer should also consider lifting weights.
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Breast Cancer – Know the Facts
Rather than attempting to start weight-lifting yourself if you’ve never done it before, schedule a session with a personal trainer at a local gym. He or she will guide you through the safest and best methods to lift weights at your age and level of health.
Ask your doctor for exercise information for breast cancer survivors or research exercise methods online.
Aside from skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States.
Both environmental and genetic factors play a role in developing breast cancer, and the rate of incidence increases dramatically in women over the age of 50.
One of the most consistent determinants of risk is a woman’s age at her first pregnancy – women who have their first children after age 30 or never have children face a two to three-fold risk of developing breast cancer.
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According to the American Psychological Association, the approximately 185,000 newly-diagnosed patients with breast cancer each year face potential emotional turmoil and damage to their psychological well-being as a result of their physical diagnosis. Just some of these effects include feeling tired all the time and extreme worry about their symptoms, their treatment and their mortality – all of which can contribute to chronic stress, anxiety and depression.This new study, published in a recent issue of Cancer, found that 80 percent of the participants – which included women between four and 36 months past their primary treatment – reported increased quality of life scores after being assigned to a twice-weekly weight lifting regimen for three months.
Previous research found that aerobic exercise was helpful in terms of improving overall quality of life in breast cancer survivors, but this study was the first to examine the potential benefits of weight lifting and increasing lean muscle mass.
“The results show that weight training had beneficial effects on physical and psychosocial quality-of-life scores,” researchers wrote. “These improvements were associated with increases in lean muscle mass and upper body strength.”
The 86 women were divided into a control group and a treatment group who, with the help of a fitness trainer, engaged in both free weight and resistance training which targeted the chest, back, shoulders, arms, buttocks, hips and thighs.
“The mechanism by which weight-training may improve quality of life in breast cancer survivors may be a sense of return to feeling in control of their bodies that may translate into feeling greater efficacy in other areas of life,” said researcher Dr. Kathleen H. Schmitz, Ph.D.
The study used the Cancer Rehabilitation Evaluation System (CARES) to assess changes in quality of life and evaluated the women’s depressive symptoms using the standards determined by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression scale.
Researchers asked both groups of women about their physical well-being, their marital status, their sexual activity and other aspects of their lives. At a six-month follow-up, the physical global quality of life scores as well as the psychosocial global scores in the women in the treatment group were improved when compared to the control group.
Specifically, women in the treatment group reported more strength, speed and self-confidence than the women who didn’t participate in a weight-lifting regimen.
Researchers found no evidence that depressive symptom scores or frequency of depression changed for either group, though they felt the fact that such a small number of women in the group suffered from depression from the outset might explain this.
