The effect of 10-week aerobic exercise on levels of serum leptin, insulin resistance, maximum aerobic power and quality of life among overweight female breast cancer survivors

Background: Breast cancer is the most common and deadliest cancer among women, which isconsidered as the most important women health concern worldwide. Today, physical activity andexercise are recognized as safe and effective alternative methods to treat breast cancer and othertypes of cancers.Objectives: The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of 10-week aerobic exercise on levelsof serum leptin, insulin resistance, maximum aerobic power and quality of life among overweightfemale breast cancer survivorsMethods: This experimental study was carried out among 25 overweight female breast cancersurvivors (age range: 30-55 years). Patients were randomly assigned to one of the two groups ofexercise (n= 15) and control (n= 10). During the study, one patient in the control group and one inthe exercise group withdrew from continuing in the study (exercise group (n= 14) and control group(n= 9)). The aerobic exercise training protocol was performed for 10 weeks with an intensity of 40to 75% of maximum heart rate. Levels of leptin, insulin, glucose, insulin resistance, anthropometricparameters and body composition were measured (pre-test/post-test design). Functional Assessmentof Cancer Therapy questionnaire was used to examine the participants’ quality of life before andafter the study Results: The results of this study showed that there were no significant differences betweenanthropometric parameters, lipid profile and body composition of patients in control and exercisegroups. However, significant difference was observed in patients’ weight (P= 0.033) between thetwo groups. After eight weeks of aerobic exercise, the levels of leptin (P< 0.0001), insulin (P=0.007), insulin resistance (P< 0.0001) and VO2 max (P< 0.0001) were increased between thecontrol and exercise groups. Also, significant differences were observed between physical health(P< 0.0001), social/family health (P< 0.0001), functional health (P< 0.0001), emotional health (P<0.0001) and general health (P< 0.0001) in exercise and control groups after weeks of aerobicexercise.Conclusion: 10-week aerobic exercise leads to decrease in levels of serum leptin, insulin,glucose and insulin resistance, and an increase in aerobic fitness of overweight female breast cancersurvivors. Aerobic exercises can also be effective in weight control, however, no such thing wasobserved in this study. These exercises could also improve the quality of life of overweight femalebreast cancer survivors. Therefore, exercise appears to improve the levels of leptin and insulinresistance, independently of changes in body composition, in overweight female breast cancersurvivors