What can increase the success rate in treating breast cancer? Breast cancer is the most frequently occurring cancer in women, and one of the most important factors in regaining health are lifestyle changes.
Diet, exercise and stress reduction all play an important role in getting back on the road to health, well being and living life cancer-free.
Tune into SMG Radio to hear Dr. Roshini George talk about lifestyle modification to aid in breast cancer survivorship.
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Lifestyle Modification in Breast Cancer Survivorship
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Learn more about Roshini George, DO
Roshini George, DO
Roshini George, DO, specializes in oncology and hematology. In addition to seeing patients at Summit Medical Group, she participates in clinical studies in breast cancer and blood disorders. Her area of specific interest is in the treatment of breast and gynecologic cancers.Learn more about Roshini George, DO
Transcription:
Lifestyle Modification in Breast Cancer Survivorship
Melanie Cole (Host): Advances in diagnostic screening and acumen therapy have dramatically increased the number of breast cancer survivors in the USA. My guest today is Dr. Roshini George. She specializes in oncology and hematology at Summit Medical Group. Welcome to the show, Dr. George. What's going on in the world of breast cancer and these diagnostic screenings that are helping women to find cancer and treat it more early?
Dr. Roshini George (Guest): Good morning, Melanie. The good news is that people are being treated very well these days for breast cancer. Cancers are caught early, so they live long, fulfilling lives after the diagnosis, as well. So, our goal right now is to make sure that we decrease the risk for recurrence and people live a great life with great quality of life.
Melanie: While women are going through treatment, this is always a time of mental and emotional frailty. What do you want women to know about lifestyle modifications to help increase their survivorship?
Dr. George: So, right now there are a lot of studies focusing on lifestyle modifications to do exactly that. There are randomized data that suggests that women who modify their diet and eat more whole grains and vegetables and completely limit their fat intake or decrease their fat intake, it has proven to increase their survival rates and decrease the risk for recurrence. There's a lot of focus on exercise, as well. We encourage women to exercise and take good care of their mind and body and their whole well-being that would help their breast cancer survivorship years.
Melanie: So, what other types of lifestyle modifications, and when you say exercise during certain treatments, exercise can be a little bit more difficult. Give us some specifics on what you mean about these modifications and nutritionally exercise--what you want them to actually do.
Dr. George: So, right now the thought process is that chemotherapy-induced fatigue is actually alleviated by increasing your exercise regimen. So, we actually encourage women to do moderate amounts of exercise. You don't have to lift heavy weights, but you can just do walking or run on the treadmill for however time that you want to, but if you can do it for about a half hour on a daily basis, it does help combat the chemotherapy-induced fatigue. So, while you're going through treatment, we highly encourage them to exercise and then after treatment, we have to incorporate exercise as part of their daily living. So, there is data that suggests that if you exercise on the average about an hour a day, it does help decrease a risk for recurrence down the road. The benefits of exercise are that it will help you maintain a healthy weight, and that has been correlated with improving your survivorship results as well.
Melanie: How much exercise would you like people to do? Would you like them to simply walk or are you encouraging them to try other things?
Dr. George: For folks who can only walk, that's perfect, and on the average we recommend that they walk for at least a half hour to an hour daily and if they can do a little bit more, do a little bit of strength training, it would be beneficial for the overall bone health, as well. So, whatever people can do would be perfect, but we truly encourage them to do as much as they can.
Melanie: What about some other things that might help them with survivorship during their treatment, such as yoga, meditation, massage--do you encourage any of these other types of treatments?
Dr. George: Well, we certainly do. We've found that if patients are less stressed out during their treatment, they tolerate their treatments fairly well and other complementary therapies such as yoga, reiki, massage therapy, does help them tolerate the treatments well and down the road, it does help to maintain a healthy balance, so emotionally they are at a better place, as well.
Melanie: What about drinking alcohol? For women, this can be quite confusing. What increases their risk? What would you like them to know about alcohol?
Dr. George: There's a lot of talk now about limiting the amount of alcohol intake. The rationale behind is that alcohol affects the estrogen metabolism and, therefore, we would really like people to limit the amount of alcohol that they drink. So, we encourage them not to drink on a daily basis. It doesn't mean that they cannot have a few drinks for occasions but on the average, if they could limit their alcohol to maybe once a week, it probably will be helpful in the survivorship years, as well.
Melanie: Women going through treatment also put weight loss and weight management down on the list and what do you want them to know about the importance of managing their weight and maybe their BMI during this time?
Dr. George: That is very important, as well. As we know, there's a lot of estrogen in the fat tissue and obesity is one of the concerns that increases the risk for breast cancer. So, therefore, we strongly encourage people in order to eat healthy while they're going through treatment and maintain an ideal body weight, if they can, while they're going through treatment and it becomes a part of their daily living down the road, as well.
Melanie: Stress plays a big role in how women can adapt to treatment and recover and they talk about positive attitude. What do you want them to know about stress and keeping that good hope, good mental attitude, during this time?
Dr. George: So, unfortunately, we live in a very stressful world, so we cannot completely avoid stress, but managing it helps improve our overall general well-being and that would beneficial in terms of living a healthy life. So, I think everybody's stresses are different. So, whatever you can do to modify your stress and how you manage it will clearly be helpful. So, some people take up exercise, some take up yoga, others pick up a new hobby, so whatever is beneficial for you, I strongly encourage you to do those activities to help reduce the stress in your life.
Melanie: And, in just the last few minutes, Dr. George, wrap it up for us about lifestyle modifications that can help increase breast cancer survivorship and why they should come to Summit Medical Group for their care.
Dr. George: There has been a lot of talk from the American Society of Oncology about survivorship in general for all malignancies and especially for breast cancer. The benefits that we offer is that we actually can help guide people to meet with folks who actually help with their lifestyle modification. I always have a chat with my patients about what they can do in order to improve their chances of the cancer not coming back. So, we always talk about eating healthy and maintaining a healthy weight and increasing their exercise regimen and limiting the alcohol intake and, obviously, try to lead a healthy and balanced life.
Melanie: Thank you so much for being with us today. It's great information. You're listening to SMG Radio. For more information, you can go to www.summitmedicalgroup.com. That's www.summitmedicalgroup.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
Lifestyle Modification in Breast Cancer Survivorship
Melanie Cole (Host): Advances in diagnostic screening and acumen therapy have dramatically increased the number of breast cancer survivors in the USA. My guest today is Dr. Roshini George. She specializes in oncology and hematology at Summit Medical Group. Welcome to the show, Dr. George. What's going on in the world of breast cancer and these diagnostic screenings that are helping women to find cancer and treat it more early?
Dr. Roshini George (Guest): Good morning, Melanie. The good news is that people are being treated very well these days for breast cancer. Cancers are caught early, so they live long, fulfilling lives after the diagnosis, as well. So, our goal right now is to make sure that we decrease the risk for recurrence and people live a great life with great quality of life.
Melanie: While women are going through treatment, this is always a time of mental and emotional frailty. What do you want women to know about lifestyle modifications to help increase their survivorship?
Dr. George: So, right now there are a lot of studies focusing on lifestyle modifications to do exactly that. There are randomized data that suggests that women who modify their diet and eat more whole grains and vegetables and completely limit their fat intake or decrease their fat intake, it has proven to increase their survival rates and decrease the risk for recurrence. There's a lot of focus on exercise, as well. We encourage women to exercise and take good care of their mind and body and their whole well-being that would help their breast cancer survivorship years.
Melanie: So, what other types of lifestyle modifications, and when you say exercise during certain treatments, exercise can be a little bit more difficult. Give us some specifics on what you mean about these modifications and nutritionally exercise--what you want them to actually do.
Dr. George: So, right now the thought process is that chemotherapy-induced fatigue is actually alleviated by increasing your exercise regimen. So, we actually encourage women to do moderate amounts of exercise. You don't have to lift heavy weights, but you can just do walking or run on the treadmill for however time that you want to, but if you can do it for about a half hour on a daily basis, it does help combat the chemotherapy-induced fatigue. So, while you're going through treatment, we highly encourage them to exercise and then after treatment, we have to incorporate exercise as part of their daily living. So, there is data that suggests that if you exercise on the average about an hour a day, it does help decrease a risk for recurrence down the road. The benefits of exercise are that it will help you maintain a healthy weight, and that has been correlated with improving your survivorship results as well.
Melanie: How much exercise would you like people to do? Would you like them to simply walk or are you encouraging them to try other things?
Dr. George: For folks who can only walk, that's perfect, and on the average we recommend that they walk for at least a half hour to an hour daily and if they can do a little bit more, do a little bit of strength training, it would be beneficial for the overall bone health, as well. So, whatever people can do would be perfect, but we truly encourage them to do as much as they can.
Melanie: What about some other things that might help them with survivorship during their treatment, such as yoga, meditation, massage--do you encourage any of these other types of treatments?
Dr. George: Well, we certainly do. We've found that if patients are less stressed out during their treatment, they tolerate their treatments fairly well and other complementary therapies such as yoga, reiki, massage therapy, does help them tolerate the treatments well and down the road, it does help to maintain a healthy balance, so emotionally they are at a better place, as well.
Melanie: What about drinking alcohol? For women, this can be quite confusing. What increases their risk? What would you like them to know about alcohol?
Dr. George: There's a lot of talk now about limiting the amount of alcohol intake. The rationale behind is that alcohol affects the estrogen metabolism and, therefore, we would really like people to limit the amount of alcohol that they drink. So, we encourage them not to drink on a daily basis. It doesn't mean that they cannot have a few drinks for occasions but on the average, if they could limit their alcohol to maybe once a week, it probably will be helpful in the survivorship years, as well.
Melanie: Women going through treatment also put weight loss and weight management down on the list and what do you want them to know about the importance of managing their weight and maybe their BMI during this time?
Dr. George: That is very important, as well. As we know, there's a lot of estrogen in the fat tissue and obesity is one of the concerns that increases the risk for breast cancer. So, therefore, we strongly encourage people in order to eat healthy while they're going through treatment and maintain an ideal body weight, if they can, while they're going through treatment and it becomes a part of their daily living down the road, as well.
Melanie: Stress plays a big role in how women can adapt to treatment and recover and they talk about positive attitude. What do you want them to know about stress and keeping that good hope, good mental attitude, during this time?
Dr. George: So, unfortunately, we live in a very stressful world, so we cannot completely avoid stress, but managing it helps improve our overall general well-being and that would beneficial in terms of living a healthy life. So, I think everybody's stresses are different. So, whatever you can do to modify your stress and how you manage it will clearly be helpful. So, some people take up exercise, some take up yoga, others pick up a new hobby, so whatever is beneficial for you, I strongly encourage you to do those activities to help reduce the stress in your life.
Melanie: And, in just the last few minutes, Dr. George, wrap it up for us about lifestyle modifications that can help increase breast cancer survivorship and why they should come to Summit Medical Group for their care.
Dr. George: There has been a lot of talk from the American Society of Oncology about survivorship in general for all malignancies and especially for breast cancer. The benefits that we offer is that we actually can help guide people to meet with folks who actually help with their lifestyle modification. I always have a chat with my patients about what they can do in order to improve their chances of the cancer not coming back. So, we always talk about eating healthy and maintaining a healthy weight and increasing their exercise regimen and limiting the alcohol intake and, obviously, try to lead a healthy and balanced life.
Melanie: Thank you so much for being with us today. It's great information. You're listening to SMG Radio. For more information, you can go to www.summitmedicalgroup.com. That's www.summitmedicalgroup.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.