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Exercise and yoga improves quality of life in women with early-stage breast cancer
Date:9/4/2007

thor Kerry Courneya, PhD, professor and Canada research chair in physical activity and cancer at the University of Alberta.

Unexpectedly, the study found that women in the resistance exercise group had the best chemotherapy completion rate. The percentage of women who received 85 percent or more of their recommended chemotherapy dose was 78 percent in the resistance exercise group, 74.4 percent in the aerobic exercise group and 65.9 percent in the usual care group. Although it is unclear why exercise may improve chemotherapy completion rates, the authors speculate that exercise may cause an increase in white blood cell counts, which could allow chemotherapy treatments to continue on schedule. The authors caution that this finding should be replicated before it is considered reliable.

Benefits of Yoga

In the second study, researchers compared various quality of life measures between 84 women with early-stage breast cancer who took a weekly yoga class for 12 weeks and 44 women who did not take yoga. This was the first study to evaluate the benefits of yoga in an ethnically diverse population of women with breast cancer (primarily Hispanic and African-American women). About half of the women received chemotherapy or radiation therapy during the study period, the remainder had either already completed treatment or not required it. Overall, the women had lower than average levels of quality of life at the beginning of the study.

Yoga can promote better quality of life for women with breast cancer by helping them connect with others and feel calmer, said lead author Alyson Moadel, PhD, assistant professor in the department of epidemiology and population health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Because yoga was well-received by all cultural and socioeconomic groups, it has the potential to help many women with early-stage breast cancer.

Among all women in the study, those who did not take yoga reported a drop in
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Contact: Tiffany Reynolds
reynoldt@asco.org
703-519-1423
American Society of Clinical Oncology
Source:Eurekalert

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