The Silent Killer Stalking Cancer Survivors

Having cancer is bad enough.

But even if you’re fortunate enough to beat it, postmenopausal women are left with an increased risk of dying not from cancer… but from heart disease.

That’s because the same treatments that saved your life—chemotherapy and radiation—can damage your heart muscle.

In fact, in these women, the risk of dying from heart disease is greater than the risk of dying from breast cancer.

But don’t panic—there’s good news. If you’re in this boat, you can slash your death risk by up to 60 percent!

Researchers followed about 2,500 postmenopausal women who had been diagnosed with cancer at least one year before starting the study.

They wore accelerometers for 10 hours daily for up to one week to track their activity levels, step counts, and sedentary behavior.

They found that the higher the step counts and moderate activity levels, the lower their risk of dying from any cause.

Taking 5,000-6,000 steps a day was associated with a 40 percent reduced risk of all-cause mortality during the follow-up period.

Every additional 2,500 steps cut heart disease death risk by 34 percent.

Those who exercised at least one hour daily also had a 40 percent reduced risk of dying from any cause at all and a 60 percent reduced risk of dying from heart disease.

However, it’s worth noting that even lower amounts of exercise reduced the risk of dying.

On the flip side, being sedentary could be the kiss of death. For every 102 minutes of sitting time, there was a 12 percent increased risk of dying from any cause at all and a 30 percent higher risk of dying from heart disease.

If you’re a cancer survivor, you have plenty to celebrate!

But you also have work to do—to undo the damage from the same treatment that saved your life.

And staying active is one of the best ways to do it.

You don’t need to go from zero to a hundred in one day. Start with just 10 minutes of walking daily and gradually build up to 5,000 to 6,000 steps to protect your heart health.

P.S. Warning… your favorite chair could be DEADLY! Here’s how…

View Sources

Thangada Neela, Lancki Nicola, Kandula Namratha, Siddique Juned, et al., Associations of Neighborhood Walkability with Baseline Physical Activity and Sedentary Time among US South Asian Adults from the SAHELI Randomized Clinical Trial, resented at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology and Prevention | Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health Scientific Sessions 2025. Oral Presentation 060 in Session 10A Physical Activity, Sunday, March 9, 2025, at 11:00 a.m. CT.