Housework Helps Women Avoid Cancer

I knew it all along. Doing housework helps women avoid breast cancer. Now please, for your own sake, go mop my floor. According to BBC News, women need to start thinking of household chores as exercise, cancer fighting exercise, instead of drudgery:

Women who exercise by doing the housework can reduce their risk of breast cancer, a study suggests.

The research on more than 200,000 women from nine European countries found doing household chores was far more cancer protective than playing sport.

Dusting, mopping and vacuuming was also better than having a physical job.

The women in the Cancer Research UK-funded study spent an average of 16 to 17 hours a week cooking, cleaning and doing the washing.

... Out of all of the activities, only housework significantly reduced the risk of both pre- and post-menopausal women getting the disease.

Housework cut breast cancer risk by 30% among the pre-menopausal women and 20% among the post-menopausal women.

I don't suppose when you're finished vacuuming you'd have time to fix me a sandwich?

Night Light Linked to Breast Cancer

An Israeli study has found that women living in areas with the worst light pollution have a 73% greater incidence of breast cancer than women from areas with the least night lighting.

I suppose it could be explained away by noting that light pollution is found in urban areas where people are exposed to more pollution and contaminants than rural dwellers except that an earlier study found the same thing in women working the night shift in hospitals. From the Environmental News Network:

The report, published in Cancer Research, suggests that melatonin - or rather the lack of it-may be the cause. Melatonin is an essential hormone that our bodies make at night while we sleep. It requires darkness and plays a critical role in regulating our internal clocks. For women, the light-sensitive hormone is particularly important since scientists suspect that melatonin helps to reduce estrogen levels-higher estrogen levels being a factor in developing breast cancer.

And melatonin levels drop precipitously in the presence of artificial light.

This research helps to explain two stark facts that epidemiologists have long known: breast cancer rates are three to five times higher in industrialized countries and, that breast cancer rates are 20 to 50 percent less in blind women.

http://www.enn.com/health/article/39559