Among women, regular exercise in their 40s slashes breast cancer risk.  Among men, routine physical activity exerts a protective effect against prostate cancer.

US National Cancer Institute(Maryland, USA) researchers have found that regular moderate-to-vigorous exercise in the ten-year period preceding menopause may help reduce the risk of breast cancer later in life. Studying   118,899 postmenopausal women, ages 50 to 71 years, the team observed that postmenopausal women who maintained more than 7 hours per week of higher intensity activity over the 10-year period prior to entry into the study were 16% less likely to develop breast cancer.   The study authors conclude that: "A high level of recent physical activity of moderate-to-vigorous intensity is associated with reduced postmenopausal breast cancer risk."

A team from Duke University Medical Center (North Carolina, USA) studied 190 men who underwent prostate needle biopsy, and found that those who were moderately active (engaging in 9 or more hours of metabolically active exercise a week) were significantly less likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer.   Further, in those men who did develop prostate cancer, the disease was less aggressive in the subjects who engaged in regular exercise (3 to 8.9 metabolically active hours of exercise weekly).  State the study authors: “[T]hese results provide the first evidence of an association between exercise and prostate cancer risk as well as grade at diagnosis in men scheduled to undergo prostate biopsy. Specifically moderate exercise was associated with a lower risk of prostate cancer and in men with cancer, lower grade disease.”

Read more on the health benefits of exercise.  Sign up for the Longevity Magazine® e-Journal, a free educational service of The World Health Network, at http://www.worldhealth.net/longevity-magazine-ejournal-anti-aging-news/