Research
Hormonal
Weight loss interventions in breast cancer survivors lead to improvements in clinical biomarkers, specifically reductions in insulin, insulin resistance, LDL-cholesterol, and glucose, though effects on inflammatory markers and sex hormones are inconsistent.
Losing weight through diet and exercise can improve your blood sugar control and cholesterol levels, even after breast cancer treatment. This is particularly true if you lose at least 5% of your body weight.
ModerateQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
The most consistent changes were reductions in LDL-cholesterol and glucose... Trials reporting weight losses of ≥5% observed reductions in insulin and insulin resistance of 15–40%... Changes in these [inflammatory markers] are shown in Table 2... none reporting significant within- or between-group differences.
Why this rating
Based on a subset of trials measuring biomarkers; results are mixed for some markers.
Source
Weight loss intervention trials in women with breast cancer: a systematic review
Marina M. Reeves et al. · Obesity Reviews · 2014
DOI 10.1111/obr.12190
systematic_reviewCited 170×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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