As a parent of an active 3 1/2 year old, I was heartened to see this article and know that she is starting out life on the right foot so to speak. This article appears in CNN Health and is from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis:
“New research shows exercise during the teen years — starting as young as age 12 — can help protect girls from breast cancer when they are grown.
Middle-aged women have long been advised to get active to lower their risk of breast cancer after menopause.
What’s new: That starting so young pays off, too.
“This really points to the benefit of sustained physical activity from adolescence through the adult years, to get the maximum benefit,” said Dr. Graham Colditz of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the study’s lead author.
Researchers tracked nearly 65,000 nurses ages 24 to 42 who enrolled in a major health study. They answered detailed questionnaires about their physical activity dating back to age 12. Within six years of enrolling, 550 were found to have breast cancer before menopause. A quarter of all breast cancer is diagnosed at these younger ages, when it is typically more aggressive.
Women who were physically active as teens and young adults were 23 percent less likely to develop premenopausal breast cancer than women who grew up sedentary, researchers report Wednesday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.” Continued…
