Breast cancer patients urged to exercise to improve survival chances

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By Ursula Malone

Women with breast cancer have been advised by their doctors for years to put their feet up and take it easy while undergoing treatment.

Research has now shown the opposite is true and women can actually improve their survival chances by exercising and maintaining a healthy body weight.

Oncologist Dr Lina Pugliano specialises in treating breast cancer patients.

“For a long time doctors said to their patients it doesn’t really matter what you eat, you’re going through chemotherapy, you’re not going to have much of an appetite so eat what you can, eat whatever you like and don’t worry too much about exercise,” she said.

“In fact both of those statements turn out to be quite incorrect.”

She said there was evidence that women carrying excess body fat were at increased risk.

“We know that weight is incredibly important for certain types of breast cancer in that it increases your chances of not only having breast cancer, but it increases your chances of recurrence as well,” she said.

In addition, Dr Pugliano said a growing body of research has shown that exercise can increase the chances of surviving breast cancer.

“Exercise and maintaining a healthy body weight is actually a form of treatment for breast cancer and there’s a lot of international research going on into both those areas,” she said.

Free exercise class for patients

Dr Pugliano is so passionate about the benefits of exercise for her patients that she started up her own breast cancer boot camp.

Every Saturday morning, she joins her patients for a work-out in a park under the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The class is free and caters for women at all stages of treatment.

“Cancer treatment, whether you have it publicly or privately, is actually really expensive and so we didn’t want money to be a barrier for these women to get the advantages from exercise,” she said.

Lori Luhrmann, 54, is one of Dr Pugliano’s patients who has been coming to the breast cancer boot camp since August.

“You lose control of so many things when you are on treatment for this, you can’t control the hair loss, the eyebrows, the eyelashes, that’s just going to happen,” she said.

“So to be able to come and keep my muscle strength and to be able to stay at a certain level of fitness leaves me thinking that I am actually driving some of this process.”

Ms Luhrmann said as well as the exercise she has found moral support among her fellow breast cancer patients.

“I was the newest diagnosed person when I started. The ladies here have all been ahead of me on the journey so each week they check in with me and provide tips on what to look out for and what they did that helped them through,” she said.

Another boot camp regular Bronwyn White was 37 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer last year.

“I started with chemotherapy, seven cycles, then after that the surgery, then after that six weeks of radiotherapy,” she said.

“I exercised the whole way. I was coming here and then doing other bits of exercise on my own. I think it makes a huge difference to your general stamina for the whole treatment.”

Dr Pugliano is concerned that some women are still getting the wrong advice, but she believes things are changing.

“I think we’re seeing the old ideas slipping away, they’re still there, and we’re seeing a younger, newer generation of oncologists and doctors who are really seeing the importance [of exercise] and hopefully in the future what we will see is that this is a prescription as part of someone’s cancer treatment,” she said.