Fitness ‘lowers breast cancer risk’

Women who stay fit and physically active after the menopause can significantly reduce their risk of breast cancer, a study has shown.

But they have to work hard to get the benefit, spending more than seven hours a week taking “moderate-to-vigorous” exercise, say scientists.

“Light intensity” activities such as bowling, table tennis, fishing, slow walking and light gardening did not have the same effect. And no amount of exercise appeared to protect younger women during their fertile years.

Examples of “moderate-to-vigorous” activity given by the scientists included tennis, biking, swimming, weight-lifting, cheerleading, hiking, fast-walking, jogging and heavy housework and gardening.

Previous studies have linked physical activity and protection against breast cancer. But this was one of the first to look at the importance of different kinds of exercise at various stages of life.

Researchers asked more than 110,000 post-menopausal women to rate their activity levels at ages 15 to 18, 19 to 29, 35 to 39, and in the past 10 years.

Over a 6.6-year follow-up period, it was found that women in the last group who had done more than seven hours a week of moderate-to-vigorous exercise were 16% less likely to develop breast cancer than inactive women.

No link was seen between reduced breast cancer risk and physical activity at younger ages.

Light intensity exercise at any stage of life had no effect on the chances of developing breast cancer.

Breast cancer affects around 45,500 women each year in the UK and causes more than 12,400 deaths. An estimated one in nine women will suffer from the disease at some time in their life.

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The robot is a dramatic example of the marriage of biotechnology with nanotechnology

Tiny robots powered by living muscle have been created by scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The devices were formed by “growing” rat cells on microscopic silicon chips, the researchers report in the journal Nature Materials.

Less than a millimetre long, the miniscule robots can move themselves without any external source of power.

The work is a dramatic example of the marriage of biotechnology with the tiny world of nanotechnology.

In nanotechnology, researchers often turn to the natural world for inspiration.

But Professor Carlo Montemagno, of the University of California, Los Angeles, turns to nature not for ideas, but for actual starting materials.

In the past he has made rotary nano-motors out of genetically engineered proteins. Now he has grown muscle tissue onto tiny robotic skeletons.

Living device

Montemano’s team used rat heart cells to create a tiny device that moves on its own when the cells contract. A second device looks like a minute pair of frog legs.

“The bones that we’re using are either a plastic or they’re silicon based,” he said. “So we make these really fine structures that mechanically have hinges that allow them to move and bend.

“And then by nano-scale manipulation of the surface chemistry, the muscle cells get the cues to say, ‘Oh! I want to attach at this point and not to attach at another point’. And so the cells assemble, then they undergo a change, so that they actually form a muscle.

“Now you have a device that has a skeleton and muscles on it to allow it to move.”

Under a microscope, you can see the tiny, two-footed “bio-bots” crawl around.

Professor Montemagno says muscles like these could be used in a host of microscopic devices – even to drive miniature electrical generators to power computer chips.

But when biological cells become attached to silicon – are they alive?

“They’re absolutely alive,” Professor Montemagno told BBC News. “I mean the cells actually grow, multiply and assemble – they form the structure themselves. So the device is alive.”

The notion is likely to disturb many who already have concerns about nanotechnology.

But for Carlo Montemagno, a professor of engineering, it makes sense to match the solutions that nature has already found through billions of years of evolution to the newest challenges in technology.

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Fitness ‘lowers breast cancer risk’

Fitness ‘lowers breast cancer risk’

A new generation

Living robots powered by muscle