The majority of breast cancer patients, a new study suggests, lack sufficient exercise.

It is a well-known fact that regular exercise helps in maintaining overall health and wellness. Furthermore, physical activity following a breast cancer diagnosis has been associated with an improved quality of life and better long-term prognosis.

Yet most of the participants in a recent breast cancer study did not meet the standard recommendation for physical activity guidelines once diagnosed with the disease.

Post-diagnosis, African-American women, compared to their white counterparts, were less likely to keep up a regular exercise regime. Such findings suggest physical exercise in breast cancer patients needs to be increasingly encouraged and promoted, perhaps especially among minorities.

In a new study, Brionna Hair, a doctoral candidate in epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her colleagues analyzed the amount of exercise and any changes in exercise routines following breast cancer diagnoses.  Exercise  levels were measured according to race as well.

Researchers discovered only 35 percent of breast cancer patients, following their diagnoses, regularly exercised at the recommended level. After about six months, 50 percent of the participants reported a further decline in physical activity.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends adults exercise at a moderately-intense level for at least 150 minutes per week to reap general health benefits, as well as to ward off chronic disease.

“Medical care providers should discuss the role physical activity plays in improving breast cancer outcomes with their patients, and strategies that may be successful in increasing physical activity among breast cancer patients need to be comprehensively evaluated and implemented,” said Hair in a statement.

The findings are published online in the journal CANCER.