Breast Cancer Awareness Month runs during the whole month of October. With that being said, each October there are always new break throughs in breast cancer research. In October of 2017, Marielle Mondon posted the article, “Study: Fitness Could Help Cut the Risk of Breast Cancer” to The Philly Voice.
Mondon explains in the article that the research was done by Henry J. Thompson, who tested the theory using lab rats. Thompson and his researchers tested several generations of the rats. Overtime, the rats would run on a treadmill. The ones that were the most successful bred with each other, while the ones who were less successful also bred together. This continued with their offspring. Next, these rats would be exposed to chemicals known to cause cancer. As a result, the researchers found the following information:
The rats with poor natural fitness levels were four times more likely to develop breast cancer than the other rats. The poor fitness level rats also had more tumors and contracted the disease earlier compared to the fit rats.
Mondon’s article linked to a second article from The New York Times. This article, written by Gretchen Reynolds, entitled “Fitness May Lower Breast Cancer Risk” is from a month prior to the Mondon article. Reynold’s article also features a more in depth look at the study.
In his virtual book, Web literacy for Student Fact-Checkers, Michael Caulfield explains an article that he found to also do this — leading him to believe this new article had already been fact-checked. This is something Caulfield refers to as “reporting on reporting. Therfore, according to Caulfield, the information found in Mondon’s article would most likely be true, as it cites a previous work.
Because The New York Times article seemed to be a little more detailed, I searched for the website on Politifact to see what the general public said about it. However, this came up pretty empty. There was only one post about whether or not the website was reliable. On the “Politifact Scorebard,” there was only one vote for The New York Times — marked as “mostly false” — which lead me to believe this couldn’t be that reliable if there was not a lot of evidence.
Therefore, I went on to read the NYT article. In this article, Reynold’s explains that it’s actually somewhat unclear as to whether or not it is exercise or genetics that lead to reduced cancer cases. She explains the following:
Most of us probably think that cardiovascular fitness, which in broad, scientific terms is the ability to get oxygen and energy to muscles, is built with diligent exercise, and that the more we work out, the fitter we become. But we would be only about half right. A large percentage of our aerobic fitness, perhaps as much as half, according to some studies, is innate….Exercise can augment it, while avoiding movement and gaining weight may reduce it, but a person’s baseline, genetic fitness is his or hers from birth.
In other words, a large part of a person’s fitness levels are gained from genetics, not directly from exercise. Therefore, the question still remains, but now becomes even more specific — can exercise actually reduce breast cancer, if fitness levels are genetic and not so much achieved?
Reynolds answered this question by stating the following:
The differences between the animals with high and low fitness turned out to be striking. The rats with low natural fitness were about four times as likely to develop breast cancer as the rats with high fitness were, and showed more tumors once the disease began. They also tended to contract the disease earlier and continue to develop tumors later in life compared with highly fit rats.
Reynolds points out that these rats have natural fitness. Her article also featured a link to the actual study itself, which was published in July of 2017. Although I did not have direct access to the article, the abstract alone states that the research was not done on the rats that were able to exercise. Instead, it was the offspring of those rats. Therefore, the original article’s headline, as well as the report itself, are both pretty misleading.
For example, the original study, published in Carcinogenesis on Oxford Academic, states “Although aerobic capacity segregates risk for a number of chronic diseases, the effect of the heritable component on cancer risk has not been evaluated.”
With the original study not providing much information and neither the Mondon or Reynolds article featuring any graphs or data showing the research or differences that were found among the different rats, I wanted to see what previous research had been done, as per Caulfield’s suggestion. I turned to Google to see what other researchers may have found. I simply typed in, “does exercise reduce breast cancer?”
Sure enough, there were tons of different articles. A lot of these were posted by .gov or .org websites, including The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation — an organization built on research and global outreach in the fight against cancer.
It was here, The Susan G. Komen link, that I found the best information on the topic — whether or not exercise really reduces breast cancer. On the foundation’s website, there’s actually a whole page dedicated to the correlation between breast cancer and exercise. After each statistic or fact, a footnote is included that cites the source in which it was found.
The first thing I thought when I saw this was — “That’s great! There’s a whole list of statistics!” However, once I really read the facts, they didn’t seem all that great. The second bullet point explains, “When the evidence is looked at as a whole, regular exercise appears to lower breast cancer risk by about 10-20 percent.”
10-20 percent.
After reading this statistic, it makes me think how misleading this statement actually is. Of course, any prevention is good prevention; however, with a success rate of only 10-20%, exercise must not have that big of an impact on reducing breast cancer. Putting together this information, as well as the fact of genetics vs actual exercise, I can conclude that these headlines are misleading and these statistics are not as beneficial as they may seem.
Keeping all of this in mind, I figured one last piece of research wouldn’t hurt. Using another piece of Caulfield’s advice, I decided to read The Susan G. Komen’s website laterally — that is, looking at what other sources say about the website.
According to Wikipedia, from 2009-2010, the Komen Foundation spent 20% of their earnings on research. I find it hard to see a company as having reliable research, if said company is raising millions of dollars, but only 20% of that is going towards research itself.
Next, I turned to Snopes.
Snopes take on Susan G. Komen’s spending?
A mixed truth — Snopes explains that although the organization may only provide researchers with 20% of their earnings, the point of the organization is actually to provide awareness and public health education, not really to conduct research. Therefore, the organization isn’t technically in the wrong when they do so. Therefore, the research done by the company may not have a lot of funding, but the company does do what they are supposed to – making them reputable in my book.
Overall, I stand by my point — the headlines and statistics may not be exactly what they sound like. Therefore, it is always best to fact-check any claim. By going upstream, reading laterally, and checking sources, readers can ensure what they are reading is correct.
As for whether or not exercise can reduce breast cancer? I’d have to agree with Snopes on this one and say it is a mixed truth. Fitness levels determine cancer likelihood, not so much exercise. Even so, when exercising is an option, there is really only a small percentage of situations in which this makes an impact.
Fact Checking with Domenica 