Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Exercise, sleep and cancer

This one is a bit disturbing..... This study found that women who exercised often but did not get at least seven hours of sleep had an increased risk of cancer.

Although exercise has generally been found to prevent cancer, combining it with poor sleep may be a risk factor.

Among 4,033 women younger than 65 who had at least 20 hours of physical activity per week, those who slept less than seven hours nightly had a 47% higher risk of developing cancer (95% CI 5% to 105%) within the next 10 years, reported James J. McClain, Ph.D., of the National Cancer Institute.



Some warnings:


  • Poor sleep in other women was not a cancer risk factor and high exercise showed a protective effect against cancer in the entire sample.
  • The study was published as an abstract and presented orally at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary until they have been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

7 comments:

Keenan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Keenan said...

Sure, overtraining will get ya every time.

Does this surprise us?

Anonymous said...

Wow!! That is interesting. I better tell my flatmate she overtrains and does not sleep much.

Alexandra said...

20 hours of physical activity....what does that mean? And, regardless, 20 hours a week?? That is A LOT.

I live near Washington Co, MD, and that just doesn't make sense. There could be much much more to it than that - like an unhealthy diet.

nickysam said...

Sleeping less than seven hours a night eliminates the cancer-fighting benefits of exercise. In some cases, lack of sleep increased the risk by 50 percent. Researchers say they need to do more work to determine the exact connections between exercise, rest and cancer.
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Nickysam

Viral Marketing

Anonymous said...

Risk factor or symptom?

Chris said...

Donny - I know. All there is was that report - no actual published study