NC Healthcare Coverage Blog

In the past, doctors would often warn those who had survived breast cancer that lifting anything heavy, let alone weightlifting, could cause painful arm swelling. Now, startling new research proves that weight training could even prevent this problem from happening.

Kathryn Schmitz, an exercise scientist from the University of Pennsylvania, led this new study. The results are in the August 13 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

This is great news for the more than 2.4 million Americans who are survivors of breast cancer, because the study could make a huge difference in their quality of life.

Lymph-edema can occur in women who have had radiation treatment in the armpit or have had their lymph nodes removed to check for cancer. It is a buildup of fluids causing painful and unattractive swelling of the arms or hands.

Up until now, weight lifting was thought to be detrimental to them. Lifting weights has many benefits such as a boost in mood, muscle mass, bone strength and helping with weight control.

Schmitz performed a small study a couple of years ago and found that weight training did not make lymph-edema worse. Her latest study is the first one that is big and extended enough to indicate that this is definitely true. It even demonstrates that weightlifting can actually help sufferers of lymph-edema.

The study consisted of 141 breast cancer survivors who had suffered from lymph-edema. Half of the participants were told no to exercise at all. The other half took 90-minute weightlifting classes two times a week for 13 weeks at gyms in their communities. A custom-fitted compression garment was worn on their affected arm. They slowly worked towards more challenging weights and repetitions. Then for the next 39 weeks, they did the exercises on their own.

After a year, there were less weightlifters who had lymph-edema flare-ups – a 14 percent versus 29 percent. Only 77 visits to doctors or physical therapists, concerning lymph-edema flare-ups, were made by the group of weightlifters against 195 visits for the group that didn’t lift weights.

This said, Kathryn Schmitz warns breast cancer patients to not rush into a weight training program, suggesting patients start slowly and progress gingerly.  She recommends getting a certified fitness expert to teach how to do the exercises correctly. She also stresses the importance of wearing a well-fitted compression garment during workouts.