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- Breast Cancer Survivors and Weight Lifting… Who knew?
Breast Cancer Survivors and Weight Lifting… Who knew?
Breast Cancer Survivors Who Lift Weights Strengthen Bones, Reduce the Risk of Relapse, Reduce the Risk of Side Effects and More…
Mastectomy, toxic chemotherapy, radiation, and other standard-of-care therapies for cancer patients cause a host of short, long-term and late stage side effects. Cancer survivors could probably endure the side effects if it weren’t for the fact that many breast cancer patients relapse. And to add insult to injury, these side effects result in the deterioration of the survivors physical functioning.
The study linked and excerpted below cites weightlifting as the solution to this deterioration of this physical functioning. Not only will breast cancer survivors who lift weights manage their side effects better but they will reduce their risk of relapse.
I should know. I was diagnosed with an incurable blood cancer in early 1994. I underwent aggressive conventional therapies in ’95 and ’96 including a bone marrow transplant. Brain, heart and nerve damage are only the top three side effects I have learned to live with.
However I have maintained complete remission since ’99 through daily exercise, nutrition, supplementation, bone health and lifestyle therapies.
For more information about non-toxic, anti breast cancer nutrition, supplementation, exercise, detox, bone health therapies and more, scroll down the page, post a question or comment and I will reply ASAP.
To Learn More about Lymphedema- click now
Thank you,
David Emerson
- Cancer Survivor
- Cancer Coach
- Director PeopleBeatingCancer
Weight lifting may reduce physical function deterioration among breast cancer survivors
“According to findings published online early in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia have found that slowly progressive weight lifting compared with standard of care reduced the incidence of physical function deterioration among breast cancer survivors…
The researchers note that future studies should compare efficacy of weight lifting with other exercises, such as brisk walking, in order to develop a confirmatory study aimed at identifying the best approach to preserving physical function among breast cancer survivors.
Breast cancer survivors may experience physical function deterioration, which may lead to bone fracture, disability, injurious falls, and premature death…”
Effects of weight-lifting or resistance exercise on breast cancer-related lymphedema: A systematic review
“The purpose of this systematic review was to identify the effects of weight-lifting or resistance exercise on breast cancer-related lymphedema.
Published articles written in English were retrieved from electronic databases, including ScienceDirect, PubMed, Scopus, and CINAHL databases. Hand-searches for unpublished papers were also completed. Content analysis was used to examine articles that met the inclusion criteria.
Among 525 searched papers, 15 papers met the inclusion criteria: 13 trials evaluated weight-lifting or resistance exercise alone and two trials evaluated weight-lifting or resistance exercise plus aerobic exercise.
The results of the review showed that no arm volume change was observed for either exercise modality. In addition, six included studies showed that weight-lifting or resistance exercise did not cause lymphedema or adverse events in patients at risk of breast cancer-related lymphedema.
For patients with breast cancer-related lymphedema, six studies reported that change of swelling outcome measures were not significantly different between the weight-lifting or resistance exercise group and the control group.
However, three included studies reported that volume of arm was significantly more reduced in the weight-lifting or resistance exercise group than those in the control group.
The findings suggest that supervised resistance exercise may be safe, feasible, and beneficial in patients with breast cancer-related lymphedema or at risk for breast cancer-related lymphedema. However, the limitation of small sample size implies that further research is needed to confirm these findings.