br Characteristics of participants br Participants

Characteristics of participants.
Participants
Demographic characteristics Women with a history Women without a
of breast cancer history of breast cancer
Age [mean years [SD]
Relationship status [n (%)]
Single
Highest level of education
Blue collar
Family income (CAD) [n
Aerobic physical activity
3.2. Diurnal cortisol
Fig. 2 displays the plots of the diurnal L-Glutamine fluctuation pattern across five time points by cancer experience and aerobic PA frequency.
Fig. 1. Average diurnal cortisol AUCi scores for
participants by cancer experience and aerobic
PA frequency. On the left side (PA1), no/low PA
plots participation in PA ≤ one time per week
and moderate/high PA participation in
PA ≥two times per week. On the right side
(PA2), no/low PA indicates participation in
PA ≤three times per week and moderate/high
PA participation in PA ≥ four times per week.
3.3. Reactive cortisol
Fig. 2. Diurnal cortisol profiles of participants with and without a history of BC by aerobic PA frequency. On the left side (PA1), no/low PA plots participation in PA ≤ one time per week and moderate/high PA participation in PA ≥ two times per week. On the right side (PA2), no/low PA reflects participation in PA ≤ three times per week and moderate/high PA participation in PA ≥four times per week.
Fig. 3. Average reactive cortisol AUCi scores for participants by cancer experience and aerobic PA frequency. On the left side (PA1), no/low PA shows participation in PA ≤one time per week and moderate/high PA participation in PA ≥two times per week. On the right side (PA2), no/low PA shows participation in PA ≤three times per week and moderate/high PA participation in PA ≥four times per week.
Fig. 4. Reactive cortisol profiles of participants
with and without a history of cancer by aerobic
PA frequency. On the left side (PA1), no/low
PA shows participation in PA ≤ one time per
week and moderate/high PA participation in
PA ≥two times per week. On the right side
PA ≤three times per week and moderate/high
PA participation in PA ≥ four times per week.
TSST.
4. Discussion
The specific objectives of the present study were to assess whether aerobic PA is associated with diurnal and reactive cortisol patterns, and whether the association between aerobic PA and cortisol patterns dif-fered between women with and without a history of BC. In regards to our first objective, our hypothesis that women who engaged in aerobic PA more frequently (moderate/high PA group) would exhibit sig-nificantly less abnormalities in their cortisol patterns than those who engaged in aerobic PA less frequently or not at all (no/low PA group) was not supported as diurnal and reactive cortisol patterns did not differ statistically across aerobic PA groups. In regards to our second objective, a marginally significant (p = .05) cancer experience by aerobic PA interaction was observed when analyzing diurnal cortisol data suggesting that women without a history of BC who engaged in aerobic PA more frequently (moderate/high PA group) had a lower cortisol level at awakening and 30 min after awakening than women with a history of BC. Moreover, the association between aerobic PA and reactive cortisol patterns appeared to differ statistically based on wo-men’s cancer experience (i.e., history vs. no history of BC) when using the PA1 cutoff, whereby women without a history of BC had a sig-nificantly higher overall cortisol reactivity to an acute stressor (both in terms of AUCi and time point fluctuations) than women with a history of BC.