Weightlifting After Breast Cancer Treatment Reduces Lymphedema

Good news for breast cancer survivors.  This is part of the trend over the past few decades of using exercise for treatment and recovery from illness and injury.  The generic advice of rest and inactivity is being overturned.  Note too that weight lifting is the specific exercise studied.  Of course this should be with your doctor's approval.

Weightlifting Slashes Lymphedema Risk After Breast Cancer Treatment, Study Suggests

ScienceDaily (Dec. 8, 2010) — Weightlifting may play a key role in the prevention of the painful limb-swelling condition lymphedema following breast cancer treatment, according to new research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Combined with the team's previous findings that the exercise limits a worsening of symptoms among women who already have lymphedema, the new data cements the reversal of long-running advice that breast cancer survivors should avoid lifting anything heavier than five pounds after they finish treatment.