A new study has pointed out that short sleep and snoring habit during pre-diagnostic stage is linked with low cancer-specific survival. Therefore, it has been suggested that cancer patients should improve their sleeping patterns.

Study's lead author Amanda Phipps, assistant professor of epidemiology, at the University of Washington in Seattle, said sleep pattern is especially important for breast cancer survival.

The research published in the journal Sleep has carried out a comparative analysis of 21,230 women who were diagnosed with a first primary invasive cancer. The participants were asked to provide information on several sleep habits, like sleep duration and snoring.

The researchers have also adjusted factors like age at enrollment, study arm, cancer site, marital status, household income, smoking and physical activity. It was found that short sleep duration and frequent snoring was associated with poorer breast cancer-specific survival.

After menopause, overweight and obese women were at increased risk of developing breast cancer in comparison to normal-weight women. Women with extreme levels of obesity were 86% more likely to develop most common form of breast cancer and to be diagnosed with more advanced cancers.

Women who were overweight or obese and lost weight were not able to reduce their increased breast cancer risk. Dr. Clifford Hudis said that the research is a caution that weight can cause a lot of chronic problems.

Hudis, chief of the Breast Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said, "Unfortunately (overweight and obesity) is just a growing problem in Western countries. It's a public health challenge".