Honest Health
Upstairs at Janet Green Garrison's popular Yoga For Health Studio, women of all ages and shapes are using bolsters, blocks and belts to stretch major muscle groups as they bend and hold their bodies in place.
Down the street at Streamline Strength Studio in the Blackburn Tavern Building, a group of toned women strengthen their muscles with exercises, pulleys and ropes, while Laurie Fleming's relentless voice urges them to suck in their abs and then breathe. Meanwhile, on the other end of town, a group of women are putting exercise back into their lives by doing a 30-minute circuit of muscle stretches, in-place walking and socializing at Curves on Eastern Avenue.
Over the Cut at Manchester Athletic Club — or into Hamilton, via Exit 17, at Club Xcel — women are intently spinning, working-with weights or doing Pilates under the watchful eyes of Leslie Rice and many other top-notch trainers. Meanwhile, along Cape Ann's Gold Coast, from Prides Crossing to Eastern Point, Rice and a cadre of other certified personal trainers or Pilates instructors schedule house calls to put women through custom-designed exercise paces.
More and more women, no matter what age or income, are pushing our muscles to the next level and burning fat as we reshape our contours. Happily these same exercises also help significantly reduce our risk of developing breast cancer or a recurrence of the disease. With Boston's North Shore registering some of the highest breast cancer rates in the world, this increased focus on exercise can become a life-giving investment.
What does exercise have to do with breast cancer?
Well, let me list some ways:
Fat doesn't just get in your way when you sit down, lean over or make love. Lots of body fat also gets in the way of our long-term health by generating lots of weak estrogen. Research shows that too much extra human, animal or chemical estrogens running around our bodies can significantly increase our risk of developing breast cancer (prostate cancer as well). Taking off excess body fat becomes one of the most powerful ways to reduce this risk. This is especially true for those of us who have passed menopause; research shows that being post-menopausal and just 10 or 15 pounds overweight can increase one's breast cancer risk level by a huge 25 to 30 percent.
Exercise also keeps our intestinal elimination system humming, making it easier to have two or more bowel movements a day, thus allowing us to efficiently pass excess chemical and animal estrogens from our bodies throughout the day. Studies show that excess estrogens from food, cleaning agents, cosmetics, contraceptive, fertility and hormone replacement drugs and other sources, if left in the bowel for too long, is reabsorbed into the body, pushing excess estrogen loads to dangerous levels.
Exercise also keeps our lymphatic plumbing humming. This is the body's fluid-based system that uses muscle to pump cleansing liquid throughout breast tissue. Lymph fluids allow excess hormones to be carried away from breast tissue and absorbed into the bladder and bowels. Although Maidenform and Bali might wish it weren't so, it does not take a rocket scientist to realize that any tight, binding or underwire bra, worn 24/7 or even 12/7 might be able to gum up the fluid dynamics of our breasts.
Honest Health, written by Manchester resident Susan Wadia-Ells, is a new regular column beginning today. Wadia-Ells, a long time wellness advocate, with graduate degrees in politics, energy economics and women studies, is founder and director of the national nonprofit organization, Know Breast Cancer, www.knowbreastcancer.net. She also writes the blog www.thetruthaboutbreastcancer.com.
EXERCISE OPTIONS
Have you heard enough reasons yet to rev up your exercise habit?
If so, go back to your favorite gym or studio or go choose a new exercise option. Some gyms even throw in a free trial class so you can test the water.
Cape Ann YMCA, www.northshoreymca.org, 978-283-0470.
Streamline Strength Pilates, 978-281-5347.
Manchester Athletic Club, www.manchesterathleticclub.com, 978-526-9681.
Leslie Rice CPI, 978-526-1980.
Club Xcel, www.clubxcel.com, 978-468-1090.
Yoga for Health, www.yogaforhealth.info, 978-281-5525.
