Yet another reason to exercise…
As if women in general, and postmenopausal women even more, didn’t know that there are many reasons to exercise and eat well. Now, they’ve been given one more.
HealthDay News has reported that a study has shown that women with high blood pressure, diabetes, insulin issues, or other types of metabolic syndrome (insulin resistance syndrome) may have an increased risk of breast cancer as well.
Metabolic syndrome consists as several conditions such as abdominal obesity, high blood glucose levels, impaired glucose tolerance, abnormal lipid levels and hypertension.
The study, which included 4,888 women, ages 50 to 79, who did not have diabetes at the start of the study. According to researcher Geoffrey C. Kabat, senior epidemiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, the study shows that “women who had the metabolic syndrome during the three to five years prior to breast cancer diagnosis had roughly a doubling of risk.”
The study also found that high diastolic blood pressure (bottom number) alone was associated with more than a twofold increased risk, whereas elevated triglyceride and glucose levels were each associated with about 1.7 times increased risk.
Metabolic syndrome itself, which is associated with poor diet and lack of exercise, has already been shown to increase the risk for diabetes and heart disease.
For more information about the study, check out the July issue of the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.