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University of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Center, Madison, Wisconsin 53706 [S. M. S., P. A. N., A. T-D., P. L. R.]; Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington 98109 [P. A. N.]; University of Wisconsin Department of Preventive Medicine, Madison, Wisconsin 53705 [P. L. R.]; The University of Chicago, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Chicago, Illinois 60637 [R. M.]; Norris Cotton Cancer Center, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical School, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755 [E. R. G.]; Departments of Nutrition and Epidemiology [W. C. W.], Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts 02115; and Harvard Medical School, Channing Laboratory, Boston, Massachusetts 02115 [W. C. W.]
| Abstract |
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once/day) was 0.45 (95%
CI = 0.260.79). Associations with frequency of activity also
varied by weight change. Compared to women with no activity and little
adult weight gain, frequent physical activity was associated with
reduced postmenopausal breast cancer risk in women who had lost weight
since age 18 (OR = 0.19, 95% CI = 0.050.70) or had gained
little or modest amounts of weight (weight gain: first tertile, OR = 0.36, 95% CI = 0.050.85; second tertile, OR = 0.31, 95%
CI = 0.140.66). Weighted MET score analyses yielded
similar but less inverse results. These findings suggest that the
reduced risk of postmenopausal breast cancer associated with frequent,
early-life physical activity may be greatest in women who, over the
adult years, either lost weight or gained only modest amounts. | Introduction |
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The purpose of this report is to expand on our previous observation of a reduced risk of breast cancer associated with regular, moderate-to-strenuous activity in early life (11) by evaluating whether reductions in postmenopausal breast cancer risk depend on body size at age 18 and at interview.
| Materials and Methods |
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Control subjects were randomly selected from the community using two sampling frames: (a) women less than 65 years of age were selected from lists of licensed drivers; and (b) women ages 6574 years were selected from a roster of Medicare beneficiaries compiled by the Health Care Financing Administration. Eligible controls had no personal history of breast cancer, a listed telephone number, and, if less than 65 years of age, a drivers license. Of the 11,329 eligible controls, 122 (1.1%) had died, 153 (1.4%) could not be located, and 1,521 (13.4%) refused to participate, leaving 9,529 (84.2%) women for analysis.
Data Collection.
A telephone interview elicited information on participation in any
strenuous physical activity, reproductive history, personal and family
medical history, and demographic factors. Strenuous physical activity
or team sport participation was ascertained for two age periods:
(a) 14 to <18 years; and (b) 1822 years.
Interviewers were instructed to include only strenuous activities
(above
MET3
6; Ref. 12
) such as basketball, soccer, and swimming as
well as labor, but not high school physical education. Up to three
strenuous activities and/or sports were recorded for each time period,
and for each reported activity, the number of years, the number of
months per year, and the frequency of episodes (per day/week/month) of
participation were noted. We did not ascertain the length (minutes) of
each episode of activity. Information on weight 5 years before
interview ("recent weight") and tallest height were obtained. For
interviews after August 1988, women were also asked about their weight
at age 18.
Statistical Analysis.
Women were classified as postmenopausal if they reported natural
menopause or bilateral oophorectomy before their reference age, which,
for cases, was their age at diagnosis. A comparable reference
age for controls was defined as the age at interview minus the average
time from diagnosis to interview for the case group within each state
(range, 821 months). Women who reported hysterectomy alone and with
at least one remaining ovary were classified as postmenopausal if their
age at surgery was in the highest decile for age at natural menopause
in the control group (
55 years for smokers and
56 years for
nonsmokers).
The frequencies of episodes of reported strenuous physical activities were summed for each time period (1418 and 1822 years) and expressed as the number of times per year subjects engaged in physical activity. Frequency of physical activity was then averaged across the two time periods and categorized into five levels. Each physical activity was classified by the average rate of energy expenditure and defined as the ratio of work metabolic rate to resting metabolic rate (MET score; Ref. 12 ). Weighted MET scores were also calculated as the frequency of activity for each time period multiplied by the MET scores of each activity (11) .
Quartiles of BMI [recent weight (kg)/tallest height
(m2)] were calculated based on the distribution
of control subjects. Four levels of weight change (difference between
recent weight and weight at age 18) were defined: (a) weight
loss (weight change < 0); and (b) tertiles of weight
gain (weight change
0) based on the distribution of controls.
ORs and 95% CIs were obtained from conditional logistic regression models stratified according to age and state (13) . To evaluate the joint effects of physical activity and weight variables, indicator variables representing the joint classification of frequency of activity and BMI at age 18, BMI 5 years before interview (recent BMI), and weight change were constructed. All models were adjusted for parity, age at first birth, age at menarche, family history of breast cancer, education, and age at menopause. Additional adjustment for other variables including smoking or alcohol history and use of exogenous hormones did not materially affect risk estimates. Additionally, weight at age 18 was included when evaluating recent BMI, and BMI at age 18 was included when evaluating associations within weight change strata. Effect modification by BMI at age 18, recent BMI, and weight change was evaluated by examining the difference in the log-likelihood between models with and without interaction terms expressed as the products of continuous variables. Women with missing values for covariates were assigned to unknown categories and retained in all analyses.
Subjects with missing or incomplete information on physical activity (256 cases and 428 controls), menopausal status (260 cases and 378 controls), and weight (recent weight and weight at age 18) or height (219 cases and 312 controls) were excluded, therefore limiting analyses to 6186 cases and 8452 controls. Analyses were further restricted to postmenopausal subjects (4614 cases and 5817 controls) because the adverse effect of obesity was present only in this group (14) , and the number of premenopausal cases (n = 1572) was too small for separate examination of interactions with high levels of activity.
| Results |
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once/day on average) strenuous physical activity at
age 1422 years was associated with up to a 45% reduction in risk of
postmenopausal breast cancer (OR = 0.55, 95% CI =
0.390.78, P for trend = 0.002; Table 1
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364 times/year was 0.45 (95% CI = 0.260.79). Similar but less strong results were obtained when
weighted MET scores were evaluated (P for interaction =
0.08).
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364 times/year; OR = 0.36; 95% CI = 0.150.85;
P for trend = 0.001) compared to no activity. In the
second tertile of weight gain, a lower risk of breast cancer was
observed only with the highest frequency of strenuous activity (OR = 0.31; 95% CI = 0.110.66), compared to no activity in the
first tertile of weight gain. Strenuous physical activity was not
associated with breast cancer risk in the highest tertile of weight
gain. Weighted MET score results were again similar but were less
strongly inverse (P for interaction = 0.3).
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| Discussion |
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More pronounced were results obtained from the model examining the joint effects of early-life physical activity and weight change between age 18 and 5 years before interview. Risk of postmenopausal breast cancer was reduced by about 80% among women who were active on a very frequent basis as young adults and who had lost weight between age 18 and 5 years before interview, independent of initial weight. However, given the small sample size of this subgroup, this estimate is unstable. Interestingly, among women with little lifetime weight gain (first tertile), reduced risk of postmenopausal breast cancer was observed at lower frequencies of early-life activity, a pattern not observed in any other weight change subgroup. In the third tertile of weight gain, all OR estimates were >1.
Limitations of our study should be considered in the interpretation of results. High response rates of cases and controls make substantial selection bias unlikely. Our studys dependence on self-reports of past physical activity and body size makes it susceptible to recall bias (1) . However, for a spurious inverse association to occur, physical activity would have to be underreported by cases or overreported by controls. Information was obtained on strenuous physical activity that occurred many years before the interview. Womens reports were reliable; in a reproducibility substudy of 203 women, the Spearman correlation coefficients between frequency of activity in the two interviews was found to be 0.60 (11) . Similarly, Spearman correlation coefficients between reports of body size in two interviews indicated excellent reproducibility [weight at age 18, r = 0.92; recent weight, r = 0.92; height, r = 0.95 (14) ]. Other studies have reported similar high levels of reliability and, to a lesser extent, validity (15 , 16) .
Our assessment of physical activity was limited to a single point in time and provided no information on duration or intensity. Whereas sparse data may have constrained our ability to identify a clear dose gradient, incomplete assessment of physical activity may also have contributed. It is possible that the group who exercised in early life and avoided weight gain is enriched with women who were relatively active throughout their lives. Thus, early-life activity may reflect later-life activity in this subgroup. Alternatively, weight gain may reflect inactivity after ages 1422. A lifetime physical activity history, although challenging to obtain retrospectively, would provide more complete definitions of physical activity (17) and permit a full evaluation of timing of physical activity. We were unable to adjust for the potential confounding effect of later-life physical activity on breast cancer risk. Finally, weight change represents net change over many years; intermittent fluctuations were not assessed, nor was intentionality of weight change.
Evidence regarding an inverse association between activity and breast cancer generally supports a similar effect in postmenopausal women (1) . However, the literature is less consistent in the period or periods that are most relevant. Results from two studies (11 , 18) provide strong overall support of an inverse association between activity early in life and postmenopausal breast cancer (range, 5054%), but other studies have not reported similar findings (19, 20, 21, 22) . The strong and adverse effect of weight gain on postmenopausal breast cancer (4 , 14) may obscure any inverse associations between early-life physical activity and risk when evaluating an overall effect. To our knowledge, no studies have specifically evaluated how associations between physical activity during late adolescence/young adulthood and risk of postmenopausal breast cancer may differ according to early-life body size and subsequent weight change. Our results are in general agreement with a prospective study of Norwegian women (3) that included both pre- and postmenopausal women. In that study, Thune et al. (3) observed that the reduction in breast cancer risk associated with recreational physical activity, assessed 1 year before baseline, was greatest in lean women (baseline BMI < 22.8 kg/m2). For most subjects in this study, baseline assessment of physical activity and body size was at mid-life. Women in our study who lost weight (median change = -4.5 kg) or who gained small amounts (first tertile, median weight gain = 4.5 kg) were also the lightest 5 years before interview (median recent BMI = 20.7 and 21.9 kg/m2, respectively). If the Norwegian women in the first tertile of BMI were similar with respect to net weight change to the women in our study who lost weight or gained little, then the reduced risk of postmenopausal breast cancer in our study is also comparable.
In summary, these current findings suggest that frequent episodes of strenuous physical activity during young adulthood may have the greatest benefit for reducing postmenopausal breast cancer risk among women who avoid substantive weight gain during adult lifea recommendation for general health (23) . In postmenopausal women who gain substantive adult weight, the benefits of frequent and strenuous early-life physical activity appear to be lost. Unfortunately, the prevalence of recreational physical activity in this country is low (24 , 25) , and adult weight gain is increasingly common (26) behaviors that may have contributed to breast cancer incidence.
| Acknowledgments |
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| Footnotes |
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1 Supported by Department of Defense Grant
DAMD17-97-1-7235 and National Cancer Institute Grants CA47147 and
CA47305. ![]()
2 To whom requests for reprints should be
addressed, at University of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Center, 4760
Medical Sciences Center, 1300 University Avenue, Madison, WI
53706. ![]()
3 The abbreviations used are: MET, ratio of work
metabolic rate to resting metabolic rate; OR, odds ratio; CI,
confidence interval; BMI, body mass index. ![]()
Received 8/10/99; revised 2/25/00; accepted 4/23/00.
| References |
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