WOMEN who exercise regularly are nearly 40 per cent less likely to die from breast cancer if they fall victim to the disease. These were the findings yesterday of doctors who found that women who made exercise a part of their lifestyle from their teens onwards had a much greater chance of surviving a tumour. Earlier studies have shown frequent exercise can help to protect women against getting breast tumours in the first place. One showed women who cycled just three hours a week cut their risk of cancer by over a third. But the latest results, published in the European Journal of Cancer Prevention, show women with a healthy lifestyle who still develop the disease will have bolstered their chances of survival. Around 48,000 women in Britain are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. A woman has a one in nine chance of developing the disease. Scientists think a healthy lifestyle probably equips the immune system to fight off attempts by cancerous cells to start dividing uncontrollably inside breast tissue. Researchers at the University of North Carolina recruited 1,508 women newly diagnosed with the disease in the late Nineties and carried out detailed assessments of their lifetime exercise regimes. They then tracked the women over a five-year period to see how many died or survived. Their results revealed that women who engaged in regular vigorous exercise from puberty to the point where they were diagnosed, were 36 per cent per cent less likely to die from their cancer and 43 per cent less likely to die from any other cause. The scientists added: “This study provides support that regular physical activity, prior to breast cancer diagnosis, improves survival.”