Movement and Health Beyond Care, MoviS: Nutrition and Exercise Educational Programs for Breast Cancer Survivors

BACKGROUND BC is the most common invasive cancer in women and evidence has shown that exercise can significantly improve the outcomes of BC survivors. MoviS (Movement and Health Beyond Care) is a randomized controlled trial that aims to evaluate the potential health benefits of exercise and proper nutritional habits.

Aim The present research study aims to assess the efficacy of aerobic exercise training on the QoL of high-risk BC survivors and the improvement of health-related factors.

Methods BC patients (sample size n=172), age 30-70 years, non-metastatic, stage 0-III, non-physically active, 6-12 months post-surgery, and post chemo- or radio-therapy, with a high risk of recurrence defined by one or more of the following criteria: BMI ≥ 25, diagnosis of metabolic syndrome, increased level of blood testosterone and insulin will be randomly allocated to the interventional arm (lifestyle recommendations and MoviS Training) or control arm (lifestyle recommendations). The MoviS Training consists of 3 months of aerobic exercise training (2 d/week of directly supervised and 1 d/week of remotely supervised exercise) with a progressive increase in exercise intensity (40-70% of heart rate reserve) and duration (20-60 min). Both arms will receive counseling on healthy lifestyle habits (nutrition and exercise) based on the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) 2018 guidelines through the DIANA-Web platform. All patients will also undergo psychological well-being counseling, which comprises evaluation for anxiety and depression.

The primary outcome is the improvement of the QoL assessed by the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer QoL (EORTC QLQ-C30) questionnaire.

The secondary outcome is the improvement of health-related parameters such as: fatigue; anthropometric measurements and body composition; cardiac function indexes and heart rate variability; functional parameters (cardiorespiratory fitness, muscle flexibility and strength, coordination and posture variability, upper limb muscle viscoelastic characteristics); psychological well-being; metabolic, hormonal and inflammatory risk factors; gut microbiota; osteoporosis level; recurrences. Diet habits, physical activity level, pharmacological treatments and comorbidity will be recorded as confounding factors and covariates.