Exercise can help women with advanced breast cancer better withstand both cancer treatments and the ravages of the disease, a new clinical trial shows. A nine-month program of supervised aerobic and resistant exercise improved muscle mass and strength among women with advanced breast cancer, particularly in their arms and legs, researchers found. The women put on nearly 2 pounds of additional muscle mass within the first three months, compared to a control group that didn’t have exercise classes, researchers found. While muscle mass did decline over time, the women still had just under a pound of extra muscle after six months compared to the control group, researchers added.  “The results from our study are important since lean body mass is linked to better treatment tolerance, prognosis and overall health, and increased muscle strength correlates with improved quality of life and lower mortality risk,” said researcher Anne May, a professor of clinical epidemiology of cancer survivorship at the University Medical Center Utrecht in The Netherlands. “This supports the call for exercise, and specifically supervised exercise with a resistance exercise component, to be integrated as a standard component of cancer care for patients with metastatic breast cancer,” May added in a news release. For the study, researchers recruited 357 patients with stage 4 breast cancer between 2019 and 2022. The women were being treated in hospitals in…  read on >  read on >

Exercise can help women with advanced breast cancer better withstand both cancer treatments and the ravages of the disease, a new clinical trial shows. A nine-month program of supervised aerobic and resistant exercise improved muscle mass and strength among women with advanced breast cancer, particularly in their arms and legs, researchers found. The women put on nearly 2 pounds of additional muscle mass within the first three months, compared to a control group that didn’t have exercise classes, researchers found. While muscle mass did decline over time, the women still had just under a pound of extra muscle after six months compared to the control group, researchers added.  “The results from our study are important since lean body mass is linked to better treatment tolerance, prognosis and overall health, and increased muscle strength correlates with improved quality of life and lower mortality risk,” said researcher Anne May, a professor of clinical epidemiology of cancer survivorship at the University Medical Center Utrecht in The Netherlands. “This supports the call for exercise, and specifically supervised exercise with a resistance exercise component, to be integrated as a standard component of cancer care for patients with metastatic breast cancer,” May added in a news release. For the study, researchers recruited 357 patients with stage 4 breast cancer between 2019 and 2022. The women were being treated in hospitals in…  read on >  read on >

Home exercises can effectively ease knee pain caused by cartilage tears and arthritis, apparently with or without physical therapy, a new study says. The stretching and strengthening exercises provided about the same amount of pain relief whether or not a person got real or sham physical therapy, researchers reported Oct. 29 in The New England Journal of Medicine. “On average, participants in all groups reported moderately severe pain at the start of the study and much milder pain three, six and 12 months later,” lead researcher Dr. Jeffrey Katz said in a news release. He’s clinical director of the Orthopedic and Arthritis Center for Outcomes Research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. As many as 40% of middle-aged folks and 80% of those with knee arthritis have tears in their knee cartilage, which is called the meniscus, researchers said in background notes. For the study, nearly 900 people with an average age of 59 were randomly assigned to one of three groups. The patients all had knee pain, arthritis and a meniscus tear. One group took part in a 25-minute home exercise program four times a week, guided by a video and pamphlets. The second and third groups got home exercise plus either real or placebo physical therapy. Those who got real or sham PT did have slightly greater pain improvement at six and…  read on >  read on >

Home exercises can effectively ease knee pain caused by cartilage tears and arthritis, apparently with or without physical therapy, a new study says. The stretching and strengthening exercises provided about the same amount of pain relief whether or not a person got real or sham physical therapy, researchers reported Oct. 29 in The New England Journal of Medicine. “On average, participants in all groups reported moderately severe pain at the start of the study and much milder pain three, six and 12 months later,” lead researcher Dr. Jeffrey Katz said in a news release. He’s clinical director of the Orthopedic and Arthritis Center for Outcomes Research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. As many as 40% of middle-aged folks and 80% of those with knee arthritis have tears in their knee cartilage, which is called the meniscus, researchers said in background notes. For the study, nearly 900 people with an average age of 59 were randomly assigned to one of three groups. The patients all had knee pain, arthritis and a meniscus tear. One group took part in a 25-minute home exercise program four times a week, guided by a video and pamphlets. The second and third groups got home exercise plus either real or placebo physical therapy. Those who got real or sham PT did have slightly greater pain improvement at six and…  read on >  read on >

Women benefit much more from exercise than men, reaping many more gains with considerably less work, a new study reports. With the same amount of exercise, women experience a three-fold reduction in their risk of death from heart disease compared to men, researchers reported Oct. 27 in Nature Cardiovascular Research. These results show that “one-size-fits-all” exercise guidelines are misguided, in that they assume both sexes derive the same benefit from the same amounts of exercise, researchers concluded. “Compared with male individuals, females derive equivalent health benefits with only half the exercise time,” wrote the research team led by Jiajin Chen, a research associate with the Xiamen University Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in China. “The findings might have potential to encourage females to engage in physical activity.” For the study, researchers analyzed data collected on more than 85,000 participants in UK Biobank, a long-term health research project in the United Kingdom. The people in the study wore activity trackers on their wrists. Results showed that to reduce their risk of heart disease by 30%, men need to get 530 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical exercise each week. Women only need to exercise 250 minutes a week — less than half — to achieve a comparable benefit, researchers found. Overall, women who met the guideline target of 150 minutes of exercise weekly had a 22% lower risk of…  read on >  read on >

Women benefit much more from exercise than men, reaping many more gains with considerably less work, a new study reports. With the same amount of exercise, women experience a three-fold reduction in their risk of death from heart disease compared to men, researchers reported Oct. 27 in Nature Cardiovascular Research. These results show that “one-size-fits-all” exercise guidelines are misguided, in that they assume both sexes derive the same benefit from the same amounts of exercise, researchers concluded. “Compared with male individuals, females derive equivalent health benefits with only half the exercise time,” wrote the research team led by Jiajin Chen, a research associate with the Xiamen University Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in China. “The findings might have potential to encourage females to engage in physical activity.” For the study, researchers analyzed data collected on more than 85,000 participants in UK Biobank, a long-term health research project in the United Kingdom. The people in the study wore activity trackers on their wrists. Results showed that to reduce their risk of heart disease by 30%, men need to get 530 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical exercise each week. Women only need to exercise 250 minutes a week — less than half — to achieve a comparable benefit, researchers found. Overall, women who met the guideline target of 150 minutes of exercise weekly had a 22% lower risk of…  read on >  read on >