Regular exercise significantly improves muscle strength and overall physical fitness in women with breast cancer, a new study showed.
A systematic review, published in the journal Sports Medicine, examined 68 individual studies conducted between 2001 and 2024, involving a total of 4,158 women with breast cancer. The research primarily focused on women in their late 40s and 50s diagnosed with stage I to III breast cancer, seeking to determine the impact of physical activity across different phases of the treatment journey.
The findings indicate that the specific benefits of exercise depend heavily on whether a patient is currently undergoing active treatment or has already completed it.
During active therapy, combined aerobic-resistance exercise proved highly effective for increasing muscular strength and cardiorespiratory fitness, or the body’s ability to handle physical exertion over time. Exercise also significantly improved functional exercise capacity (FEC), which is a measure of how well a person can perform the physical tasks required for daily life, such as walking or climbing stairs.
While exercise during active treatment helped maintain function, significant gains in fat-free mass were only observed in patients who had already completed their treatment. Furthermore, post-treatment exercise significantly enhanced muscular strength, fat-free mass and FEC, with no significant effect on cardiorespiratory fitness.
The analyzed studies provided insufficient evidence to confirm a significant effect of exercise interventions specifically in the pretreatment phase for patients with breast cancer.
Researchers noted that the most significant improvements happened when patients had a professional by their side. They found that supervised programs combining cardio and strength training at least three times a week for 12 weeks offered the best results for physical recovery.
Researchers note that although supervised exercise offers clear advantages, it should not be a mandatory requirement if it creates barriers to participation. Factors such as time constraints, high costs and psychological hurdles can make supervised interventions inaccessible for many patients.
Therefore, while professional supervision remains the preferred recommendation, it is equally vital to promote and support unsupervised exercise programs to ensure that all cancer survivors can maintain physical activity when supervised options are not feasible.
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