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"  The risk factors for breast cancer are murky at best. Beyond those BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes \u2014 the ones Angelina Jolie brought attention to with her double mastectomy \u2014 research goes back and forth about how things like breastfeeding, birth control, or childbearing can affect a woman&amp;#039;s likelihood of getting the disease. But on the flip side, we now have some new, hopeful news about how to prevent it: exercise. Yeah, you&amp;#039;ve heard before that exercise is good for you \u2014 but you haven&amp;#039;t seen it work its magic to this degree, because here it&amp;#039;s not the weight-controlling effects of working out that matter, as is usually the case. Related: How to Support Loved Ones With Breast Cancer Instead, the research \u2014 a comprehensive review of 37 previous studies concerning more than 4 million women from 1987 to 2013\u2014showed that a woman can be obese, and as long as she has a very active exercise regime, she can reduce her breast cancer chances by as much as 10 percent. &amp;quot;The mechanism for the potentially protective effect of physical activity remains unclear,&amp;quot; said Hilary Dobson, chairwoman of the European Breast Cancer Conference, where the research was presented yesterday. But the new research should give women of all weights and heights &amp;quot;a real impetus to increase their physical activity by even modest increments,&amp;quot; even if they don&amp;#039;t know why it works. And not only does a woman&amp;#039;s body type not matter, neither does how old she is when she starts to exercise, nor what kind of exercise she does. (So no more &amp;quot;Oh, I&amp;#039;ve never exercised and I&amp;#039;m 50. What can it do for me now?&amp;quot; excuses.) The caveat, though, is that &amp;quot;very active&amp;quot; does mean very active: an hour a day of exercise, which is a lot, of course. But if it&amp;#039;s one more thing that can help change the fact that one in eight U.S. women get breast cancer in their lifetime, it&amp;#039;s important. Very important. And it should give us all the motivation to pick up another spin class or weekend jog for a reason that goes way, way deeper than vanity. Related: How to Reduce Your Breast Cancer Risk Photo credit: WireImage Via ELLE "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/health-fitness/news/a22592/the-best-breast-cancer-news-weve-heard-in-a-while/>