Exercise and the Prevention of Chronic Disease, Cancer

February is Cancer Prevention Awareness Month. Here at the Abramson Cancer Center, we are committed to providing outstanding comprehensive cancer care and cancer information including ways to prevent cancer. Further, cancer researchers at Penn are at the forefront of learning new ways to prevent and detect cancer. 

Exercise and maintaining a healthy weight is one way a person can decrease their risk of cancer and aid in the prevention of chronic disease.

A person’s risk for developing cancer is based on several risk factors for cancer. However, just because someone has one or more risk factors for cancer does not mean they will develop cancer.

Exercise, Prevention of Chronic Disease Including Cancer

While cancer research has come a long way to help identify ways in which people can prevent certain types of cancer, cancer researchers are still looking for new, effective cancer prevention strategies.Obesity, or being overweight has been shown to increase cancer risk. Cancer researchers at Penn Medicine are testing to see if women who are at higher-than-average risk of developing breast cancer during their lifetimes may be able to reduce their risk with exercise.

Research has already proven that female athletes have reduced estrogen levels as a result of exercise. There is also evidence that lower estrogen levels can reduce breast cancer risk over a woman’s lifetime. The hypothesis of the study is that if estrogen levels can be reduced through exercise, the risk of a future breast cancer diagnosis may be lower as well.

February is Cancer Prevention Month, and this month we are featuring blogs all about cancer prevention. "Like" the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania on Facebook to get cancer prevention tips, cancer education and cancer research news throughout the whole year.