Choosing a healthy life means to maintain a balance in everything. It means having a balanced diet and at the same time it means to maintain a regular schedule of daily exercise. Doctors have always encouraged us to get fit because physical activity is the only way the human body can get rid of daily stress which can affect our mind and consequently our health.

The latest study on physical activity shows the same health benefits we can get from working our muscle. More exactly, researchers from the US National Institutes of Health led by Michael Leitzmann showed that vigorous exercise can significantly reduce a woman’s chance to develop breast cancer.

The study followed 32,269 women for 11 years who were asked to estimate their activity levels over the previous 12 months. The researchers found that moderate exercise did not cut breast cancer risk. On the other hand, strenuous exercise did, but was only protective in women who were not overweight or obese, while light exercise had no effect whatsoever.

If you’re wondering what “strenuous exercise” means? Well, according to the study, this physical activity is not only related to going to the gym necessarily and have our muscle worked to the maximum. On contrary, women  can do so much things that can improve their health such as household and gardening tasks, such as scrubbing floors, washing windows, digging, or chopping wood and sports or exercise such as running, fast jogging, competitive tennis, aerobics, bicycling on hills and fast dancing.

On the other hand, non-vigorous activities (vacuuming, doing laundry, painting, general gardening) and light sports or exercise (walking, hiking, light jogging, recreational tennis, bowling) offered no protection against breast cancer.

"Possible mechanisms through which physical activity may protect against breast cancer that are independent of body mass include reduced exposure to growth factors, enhanced immune function, and decreased chronic inflammation, variables that are related both to greater physical activity and to lower breast cancer risk," the study authors concluded.

The study findings were published in the Oct. 31 issue of the journal Breast Cancer Research.