UPDATED: Feb. 2, 2017 at 12:01 p.m.

A Syracuse University professor recently found that exercise can be helpful for breast cancer survivors who are combating the side effects of cancer treatment.

Gwendolyn Thomas, an assistant professor and the director of the exercise prescription lab in the School of Education, recently published an article in the Obesity Journal about the effects exercise can have on postmenopausal breast cancer survivors who are taking aromatase inhibitors as treatment. The research suggests that resistance and aerobic exercise can help breast cancer survivors who are taking AIs improve their body composition and health outcomes and reduce the side effects of AIs.

She said approximately 65 percent of breast cancer survivors are either overweight or obese, and do very little exercise a week.

“One thing we see with breast cancer treatment is increases in body fat as well as decreases in lean body mass, and also decreases in bone density because of this treatment,” Thomas said.

The current standard treatment option for breast cancer, she said, is to take AIs for five years. AIs are a type of hormone therapy drug used for treating breast cancer that can block the production of estrogen in postmenopausal women, so less estrogen is available to create hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer cells, according to Breastcancer.org.

But taking AIs will also cause some side effects such as severe joint pain, increased loss in bone density and alterations in body composition, Thomas said.

“All of these negative effects are leading to women discontinuing taking the treatment,” she said.

For Thomas’ research, breast cancer survivors were divided randomly into two groups: a twice-weekly resistance and aerobic exercise training group and a control group to help evaluate changes in the exercise group’s body mass index, percent body fat, lean body mass and bone mineral density.

Participants in the exercise group had a significant increase in lean body mass, a decrease in percent body fat and a decrease in body mass index after 12 months, the research showed. Thomas said she encourages cancer survivors to work out more often while taking AIs, even though they are struggling with the side effects of the inhibitor.

“They are told by their physicians to exercise, yet they are not very active,” she said. “(It’s) causing even more negative changes in body composition above and beyond.”

When women stop taking AIs, Thomas warned, the chance of breast cancer recurrence increases. There might also be risks of chronic diseases because of obesity, she added.

Thomas also said she is currently working on a smartphone-based tool to find out barriers breast cancer survivors face on a day-to-day basis. The mobile app, she said, will help increase the amount of exercise and physical activities breast cancer survivors have.

“Maybe they feel intimidated going to the gym and maybe they have lots of time constraints,” Thomas said. “We are making sure what happens throughout the day to stop them from exercising.”

She said she believes that there are more innovative ways to get people to exercise.

“We are trying to find different ways to get people active so more individuals will seek out opportunities to exercise,” Thomas said.

Published on February 1, 2017 at 8:14 pm

Contact Chieh: chchen@syr.edu