MONDAY, Oct. 5, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- An exercise intervention is associated with improvements in attention and memory and with slower epigenetic aging among breast cancer survivors, according to two studies reporting on the same trial and published online Sept. 30 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Sheri J. Hartman, Ph.D., from the University of California San Diego in La Jolla, and colleagues examined the impact of a 12-month intervention on cognition in 253 breast cancer survivors. Participants were randomly assigned to an exercise arm with a remotely delivered intervention or a health & wellness arm. The researchers found that compared with the health & wellness arm, the exercise arm had greater increases in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity at all follow-ups. The exercise arm had greater improvements than the health & wellness arm for secondary outcomes of attention and memory.
In the second study, Daniel Carlin, Ph.D., from the University of California San Diego in La Jolla, and colleagues examined the impact of the exercise intervention on markers of epigenetic aging in a subsample of 124 participants. The researchers found that according to GrimAge2 and DNAmFitAge clocks, epigenetic aging was slower in the exercise arm versus the health & wellness arm over 12 months. Significant correlations were observed for changes in epigenetic aging with alterations in attention and self-reported cognition, with greater cognitive decline seen in association with faster epigenetic aging.
"What is particularly striking about these findings is that the effects of exercise were measurable both at the molecular level and in cognitive performance," Paula Desplats, Ph.D., also from the University of California San Diego and co-senior author of the Carlin study, said in a statement.
