Little sleep,Decrease The Benefits Of Exercise and Increase Risk Of Cancer
Regular exercise can reduce a woman’s breast cancer risk, but the benefits may be lost if sleep deprivation, according to U.S. researchers.
The 5968 study of women in Maryland confirms previous findings that people who exercise regularly are less likely to develop cancer.
But when the researchers looked at women aged 18-65 years, who were in the top half in terms of the amount of exercise per week, they found that sleep seems to play an important role in cancer risk
Those who slept less than seven hours each night were 47 percent higher cancer risk than those who slept more physically active women, researchers reported at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.
“We believe it is very interesting and intriguing, although not something that has been widely studied,” James McClain of the National Cancer Institute, part of the U.S. government’s National Institutes of Health, said.
McClain, who led the study, says it is not clear exactly how little sleep can make one more susceptible to cancer, “Although the sufficient sleep has always been associated with health,” he said.
In the U.S. the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised the problem of sleep loss as a public health problem now, as Americans increasingly get less sleep.
Statistics has found that adults surveyed sleep six or fewer hours a night rate that increased from 1985 to 2006.
Experts say chronic sleep loss is associated with obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, strokes, cardiovascular disease, depression, cigarette smoking and excessive drinking.
In addition, research has shown that people who exercise regularly have a reduced risk of breast cancer, colon and other cancers.