Regular Exercise More Effective in Lowering Breast Cancer Risk Than Previously Thought, Study

If you were having second thoughts about putting those hours into the gym, or going for that short walk or run today, here's something that might change your mind.

It's good for your overall health, and specially, it significantly reduces breast cancer risk, scientists have found. Mind you, it's been scientifically proven for a long time that exercise reduces breast cancer risk by about 25%, but researchers have recently found is that the benefits of exercise go a lot more than that 25% -- that is, it actually reduces breast cancer risk by 40% or more.

To make things even more appealing, scientists found, that even small amounts of regular exercise, such as regularly going on short runs or walks, potentially lowered a woman's risk of dying from breast cancer by more than 40 percent.

After looking at the breast cancer mortality in nearly 80,000 women during the 11 years following their baseline survey, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, came up to this encouraging results. None of the women reported a history of breast cancer before the study's launch, and each subject kept diaries on the distances that she walked or ran every week.

Findings showed that women didn't have to be serious athletes to reap the benefits, and that even a dose of seven miles per week of brisk walking or 4.75 miles per week of running were enough.

The results of the study were published in the online edition of the journal Plos One.

Looking for other ways to reduce your risks of breast cancer? U.S. breast cancer expert Erica Mayer of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a principal teaching affiliate of the Harvard Medical School, suggests getting a mammogram starting at 40, keeping your weight in check, eating a mostly plant-based diet, and limiting your alcohol intake.