Put cancer at bay with loads of exercise and sleep

November 18, 2008: Now cutting down your risk of developing a cancer is really simple. According to a latest study, regular exercise and a good sleep are the keys to lower cancer risk.

As per the study, a woman can significantly reduce the risk of developing cancer, if she does regular physical activity and sleeps more than seven hours every night.

The findings of the study revealed that women who were in the upper bracket of 50 percent for physical activity levels, had a drastic drop of 80 percent as far as the risk of developing cancer is concerned.

But there is a word of caution for women under the age of 65. The researchers found that the risk of developing cancer increased by 1.5 times for women under the age of 65 who were in the upper 50 percent for physical activity and had a sleep of less than seven hours.

Previous researches have also proved that exercise can cut down the risk of cancer, but sleep deprivation can have a reverse effect.

The exact reason as to why exercise decreases the risk of cancer is still unknown. But researchers believe that physical activity affects functioning of the body related to cancer development. These functions can be connected to hormones, immune system and body weight.

Lead study author James McClain, cancer prevention fellow at the National Cancer Institute, said, “Greater participation in physical activity has consistently been associated with reduced risk of cancer incidence at several sites, including breast and colon cancers.”

He added, “Short duration sleep appears to have opposing effects of physical activity on several key hormonal and metabolic parameters, which is why we looked at how it affected the exercise/cancer risk relationship.”

The study was presented by McClain at the American Association for Cancer Research’s International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research.

However, McClain warned that the study findings need to be verified by other studies before coming to any concrete conclusion. This study took into account about 6000 women.