Being thin does not protect against breast cancer
Doctors pointed out at an international medical conference on obesity that exercise is the main factor in protecting women from breast cancer, stressing that thinness is not the criterion that determines the incidence of the disease.
Given women’s busy schedules these days, experts advise replacing exercise with other activities such as playing with children, shopping, walking between stores, and other things that work to stimulate the body and maintain its vitality.
Doctors said that activity is not related to exercise or age, in a study that included about 19,000 women in their mid-fifties, in which experts worked on monitoring their health status, daily habits, and the amount of exercise they practiced.
After 13 years of research and follow-up, scientists found that 900 cases of women included in the study developed breast cancer, and that 40% of them were thin. “Protection against breast cancer depends on physical activity and not on weight,” said researcher Ylva Troll-Lagros, MD, from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
She added that women do not necessarily need to engage in strenuous exercise to fight cancer, noting that it requires “a few daily activities such as walking to work or farming and playing with children.”
