Health Tip – Audio Version - Is it the exercise?
Health Tip – Healthy Next Step: Exercise May Reduce Breast Cancer Risk (National Institutes of Health)

Exercise seems to do some good against breast cancer. But it’s hard to tell why.

Researcher Jennifer Eng-Wong of the National Cancer Institute in the National Institutes of Health is among those trying to find out.

Eng-Wong is seeing if exercise changes a woman’s body in ways that reduce risk. An example: Whether exercise decreases levels of certain hormones that are higher in women with some forms of breast cancer.

“There are a lot of studies of the population that show that women who regularly exercise already have a decreased risk for breast cancer. But we don’t really understand how that occurs. And that’s one of our goals of this study.”

So Eng-Wong is looking for healthy women volunteers. Some will walk, others will stretch. She’ll look for differences with each exercise.

Health Tip courtesy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Last revised: August, 15 2006