A new study suggests that exercise is being linked with lowering the risk of breast cancer.

Modest exercise can drive down the risk of breast cancer up to 10%, according to the study published in Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention.

"The women who recently, in the previous four years, performed physical activity had had a decreased risk of breast cancer compared with women who were not so active," said author Francoise Clavel-Chapelon of the Institute Gustave-Roussy in Villejuif.

Clavel-Chapelon has emphasized that exercise even of modest intensity has a significant effect on reducing the risk of breast cancer, according to the publication The West Side Story.

Out of the 59,308 postmenopausal women that were surveyed between 1993 and 2005, the women who were least active were found more susceptible to the risk of breast cancer, according to the website. However, those who engaged in walking for at least four hours a week had the lower risk of developing breast cancer.

Exercise must be continued for the effect to endure, according to The Star Tribune. Even if a woman had been physically active earlier in life, when her reported physical activity levels dropped below the equivalent of four hours of weekly walking or two hours of cycling, her risk of breast cancer went back up.

Previous research has also established that regular, moderate exercise will also help cut the risk of heart disease, a far more common killer of women, according to the website Philly.com.