While it may be the last thing a breast cancer patient feels like doing, science is showing exercise is something that can aid them in their battle. Researchers at Edith Cowan University in Australia found that even one workout can increase their levels of myokines, which are a protein produced by the muscles that have an anti-cancer effect.

Researchers say those myokines could reduce the proliferation of cancer growth by more than 20 percent. The results of the study were published in the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.

"Exercise has emerged as a therapeutic intervention in the management of cancer, and a large body of evidence exists that shows the safety and effectiveness of exercise as medicine, either during or post-cancer treatment," researcher Francesco Bettariga said.

Bettariga worked with a group of breast cancer survivors and measured myokine levels before, immediately after and then again 30 minutes after exercise. The exercise was either resistance training or high-intensity interval training. Both methods of exercise resulted in myokine increases.

Those results would be expected in a healthy population but Bettariga wanted to see how cancer survivors would respond as a result of the impact the treatments and the cancer itself had on the body.

"The results from the study show that both types of exercise really work to produce these anti-cancer myokines in breast cancer survivors," Bettariga said. "The results from this study are excellent motivators to add exercise as standard care in the treatment of cancer."

Bettariga said the elevation of myokine levels is due further investigation, especially as it relates to cancer recurrence.

Click here to read more in the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.