Weight Training Empowers Breast Cancer Survivors

NEW YORK MAR 28, 2006 (Reuters Health) - Pumping iron may help breast cancer survivors improve the quality of their lives, as well as strengthen their bodies, a new study shows.

Women who lifted weights for six months reported feeling more self-confident and stronger, slept better and had more energy, co-investigator Dr. Kathryn H. Schmitz of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, told Reuters Health.

"They simply felt like they were empowered, literally, by this physical (program)," she said in an interview.

Schmitz noted that these reports were "anecdotal," meaning they were based on subjective responses from the women, not on scientific documentation. However, the study did find that the women who lifted weights showed overall improvements in tests designed to evaluate health-related quality of life.

"They"re not enormous changes, and whether they"re clinically significant or not has yet to be established, and that"s not what we were trying to do in this study," she added.

Women who survive breast cancer may face a host of other difficulties, including depression, fatigue, difficulty sleeping and sexual problems, Schmitz and her team report in the medical journal Cancer. While several types of aerobic exercise have been shown to improve quality of life for breast cancer survivors, they add, the effects of weight training had not been studied.

To investigate, Schmitz and her team randomly assigned 86 physically inactive breast cancer survivors to six months of twice-weekly weight training or to a control group in which there was no exercise.  The women"s last cancer treatment was 3 to 36 months before the study began.

During the first three months of the study, women in the weight-training group worked out in groups of four with a certified trainer. They performed nine exercises on free weights and resistance machines, and stretched before and after lifting weights, with the entire routine taking about an hour. For the next three months, the women exercised on their own.

The women who lifted weights showed "modest" improvements in quality of life and psychosocial well being compared with the women who didn"t exercise, Schmitz told Reuters Health.

Nevertheless, Schmitz says she has "pages and pages" of notes from women who participated in the study reporting on how weight training helped them, from being able to open jars on their own to feeling more adventurous about trying new activities.

"There were definitely reports of improved sex drive, improved sex life," she added. "They really felt like it was a very positive thing in their lives."

SOURCE:

• Cancer, May 1, 2006.