You know that getting regular exercise is important to living a healthy life, but you might not know that exercise is essential to your breast health, too.
Living an active life is not only good for you, but it can also decrease your chances of developing breast cancer, according to current medical studies.
In this short guide, we’ll see how exercise can help your body balance hormones, boost your immune system, and improve your overall health. We’ll also look at how regular exercise and breast screenings are a great idea for at-risk women.
So let’s see exactly why regular exercise is such a great idea for maintaining your breast health.
Exercise helps regulate your hormones
Regular exercise plays a central role in balancing your body’s hormones, which can help lower the risk of breast cancer. By keeping up with consistent physical activity, you give yourself more control over how active certain hormones are in your body, including estrogen and insulin.
How does regular exercise affect estrogen levels in the body?
Estrogen is a hormone that, when present in high amounts, can increase the risk of breast cancer. Regular exercise helps reduce the amount of estrogen in your body.
This happens mainly because exercising helps you reduce body fat, which is important if you’re concerned about breast cancer, since fat tissue produces estrogen. Also, being active helps your body process estrogen better, so that less estrogen affects your breast tissue.
Research shows that both moderate and intense physical activities can be helpful, making exercise a powerful way to manage estrogen levels.
How can lowering my body fat help improve my hormone-related cancer risks?
Body fat does more than store calories, it also acts like an organ that makes and releases hormones, including estrogen.
Regular exercise is an effective way to cut down body fat, which then reduces how much estrogen your fat cells make.
By keeping a healthy weight through regular exercise, you not only lower these hormone levels but also boost your overall metabolic health, which can be important for preventing cancer.
How does exercise regulate other hormones that are linked to breast cancer?
Physical activity helps lower insulin levels and improves your body’s sensitivity to insulin. High insulin levels and low sensitivity to insulin, known as insulin resistance, are connected to a higher risk of breast cancer––though not everyone with insulin resistance will develop cancer.
Exercise helps by making the cells in your body better at responding to insulin, meaning your body needs less insulin in your blood to help sugar enter cells.
Additionally, exercising releases endorphins and growth hormones, which not only boost your mood and help you sleep better, but may also play roles in lowering cancer risk through different body processes.
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Regular exercise boosts your immune system
Getting regular exercise is not just about staying fit. It also strengthens your immune system, which plays a crucial role in preventing various diseases, including breast cancer.
By keeping your immune system robust, you help your body in its ongoing battle against potential threats, including cancer cells.
How does exercise help the immune system to detect and destroy cancer cells?
Regular physical activity boosts the efficiency of your immune system, which helps it better detect and eliminate cancer cells.
When you exercise, your body increases the production of certain types of white blood cells, which patrol your body looking for abnormal cells––including cancer cells.
These enhanced immune cells are more effective in identifying and attacking potential threats before they can develop into serious problems.
Exercise also helps these cells circulate more quickly throughout your body, which increases the chances that they will find and deal with harmful invaders early.
What role does regular physical activity play in reducing inflammation?
Chronic inflammation is linked to a heightened risk of cancer, including breast cancer, as it can create an environment that promotes the growth and spread of cancer cells.
Regular exercise helps reduce inflammation: during physical activity, you release chemicals that help decrease inflammation throughout your body.
Exercise also decreases body fat, which further helps your body to lower inflammation, since body fat is known to increase inflammation in the body.
How can improving your lymphatic circulation from exercise help lower your risk for cancer?
The lymphatic system is a critical part of your immune system that helps in removing waste and toxins from your body, including cancerous cells.
Exercise plays a vital role in supporting the lymphatic system because unlike the blood, which is pumped by the heart, lymph fluid relies on muscle movement to circulate.
Regular movement and exercise help stimulate the flow of lymph fluid, which improves the removal of toxins, and enhances your immune response.
Exercise can ensure that your immune cells are more effectively distributed throughout your body, to help you fight off the development of potential cancer cells.
Exercising keeps your body in the best shape possible
As we’ve learned, regular exercise will keep your body healthy, and will likely reduce your risk of breast cancer.
It also helps you maintain a healthy weight, manage body fat, and build muscle. Those are all factors that play significant roles in your overall health and specifically in cancer prevention.
How does maintaining a healthy weight through exercise reduce your risk of breast cancer?
Keeping a healthy weight is crucial for lowering the risk of various diseases, including breast cancer, and exercise helps you burn calories to prevent excess weight gain.
A healthy weight is important because obesity has been linked to an increased risk of breast cancer, especially after menopause.
The more you engage in your favorite physical activities like walking, running, yoga, or cycling, the better your body can regulate these vital functions.
Our recommendation is to start with one exercise that you like doing, no matter what it is, and commit to doing it once a day for about 20-30 minutes.
How is your body-fat percentage related to breast cancer risk?
Your body-fat percentage can significantly affect your health. High body fat, particularly around the abdomen, is associated with increased levels of estrogen and insulin, hormones that can promote cancer growth.
By exercising regularly, you can reduce your overall body fat, which helps lower these hormone levels and potentially decreases the risk of developing breast cancer.
Activities like strength training and aerobic exercises are particularly good at reducing body fat, and at improving your metabolic health.
How does building muscles influence your overall health and cancer risk?
Building muscle through regular exercise doesn’t just make you stronger, it also boosts your metabolism, helping you burn more calories even when you’re not active.
Increased muscle mass leads to better regulation of blood sugar and insulin levels, a factor that is crucial in cancer prevention, and muscles also play a role in managing hormone levels that impact your cancer risk.
Integrating exercise with breast health screenings
Combining regular exercise with annual breast health screenings is a proactive strategy to enhance your overall breast health, and to reduce your risk of breast cancer.
Exercise improves your physical fitness, boosts your body’s natural defense systems, and boosts the preventive benefits you get from regular screenings.
How can regular exercise complement routine breast screenings to help prevent cancer?
Regular exercise boosts overall health, and plays a crucial role in preventing breast cancer by balancing hormones and enhancing the immune system, which reduces the risk of cancerous cells developing and spreading.
While exercise can lower your cancer risk, screenings enhance early detection, greatly improving your chances for successful outcomes.
How does regular exercise help you get the clearest possible imaging results?
Leaner body mass can improve the quality of imaging results, making it easier to detect any abnormalities.
Regular physical activity also improves blood flow and reduces inflammation, both of which can contribute to clearer images.
That’s why maintaining a routine exercise regimen not only boosts your health but also aids in achieving the best possible results from breast screenings.
What exercises are recommended for good breast health?
For maintaining good breast health, a combination of cardiovascular, strength training, and flexibility are a great idea.
- Cardiovascular activities like walking, jogging, or cycling help reduce fat, and increase stamina.
- Strength training, such as using weights or resistance bands, helps build muscle, and improve metabolic health.
- Stretching exercises, including yoga or pilates, can enhance blood flow, and reduce stress.
Together, these exercises form a comprehensive fitness plan that supports not only breast health but overall well-being, making them a valuable part of cancer prevention strategies alongside regular screenings.
How to schedule an appointment with us
Our goal is to offer you and your healthcare provider the most informative results possible, and we make it easy for you to get an appointment.
With numerous locations across South Jersey, you’ll find us conveniently located near major highways and key bridges in the region.
We’ll ensure the entire scheduling process is as effortless as possible for you. Above all, we are here to help you.
Reach out to us at any of the following locations to book an appointment:
- Cherry Hill Office – Cherry Hill, NJ
- Haddonfield Office – Haddonfield, NJ
- Marlton (Greentree) Office – Marlton, NJ
- Moorestown Office – Moorestown, NJ
- Turnersville Office – Turnersville, NJ
- West Deptford Office – West Deptford, NJ
- Willingboro Office – Willingboro, NJ
- Women’s Center at Cross Keys – Sewell, NJ
- Women’s Center at Medford – Medford, NJ
- Women’s Center at Mount Laurel – Mount Laurel, NJ
- Women’s Center at Voorhees – Voorhees Township, NJ
Learn more about the board-certified, subspecialized radiologists who read, analyze and interpret the findings here at South Jersey Radiology Associates.
Frequently Asked Questions
Regular exercise helps reduce estrogen levels by decreasing body fat, which produces estrogen, and by enhancing how your body processes estrogen.
Reducing body fat through regular exercise decreases the amount of estrogen produced by fat cells, lowering your risk of hormone-related cancers.
Exercise lowers insulin levels and improves insulin sensitivity, reducing the risk of breast cancer associated with high insulin and insulin resistance.
Exercise boosts the immune system’s efficiency, enhancing its ability to detect and eliminate cancer cells.
Regular exercise releases chemicals that decrease inflammation, and also reduces your body fat, which is known to contribute to inflammation.
Exercise stimulates the lymphatic system, enhancing the removal of toxins, and improving immune response––which helps prevent cancer.
Keeping a healthy weight helps prevent breast cancer by reducing body fat and the associated risk factors like high estrogen and insulin levels.
Regular exercise enhances overall health, balances hormones, and boosts the immune system, which complements breast screenings by improving early detection, and by reducing cancer risks.