More Reason to Work Out: Study Suggests Exercise Can Lower Risks of 13 Cancers
Exercise and workouts are encouraged to help lose weight or reduce the risk of acquiring health problems like high blood pressure, heart failure, and diabetes. But what if sweating it out can actually help you avoid 13 different kinds of cancer? Well, that is what a new study found out.
Live Science first reported that a group of researchers worked together to dig a little deeper on information from 1.44 million people who are either from the U.S. or Europe, with the subjects divided into 12 separate study groups. Each group was observed and followed for 11 years, where in between, they were asked how much exercise they were doing during free time plus the amount or level of physical activity they were doing aside from exercise.
The results, well, are somewhat revealing. In the entire period of the study, about 186,000 cancer cases were reported from the participants. Those who were classified to have higher levels of exercise and physical activity were found to have a reduced risk of 13 varieties of cancer. Those who were outside of this classification did not show the same reduced risk. Simply put, the subjects who regularly took time to exercise were less likely to acquire cancer.
So what are these cancer types? The study, which was published earlier this week in JAMA Internal Medicine, revealed specific cancer varieties including esophageal cancer, kidney cancer, liver cancer, lung cancer, stomach cancer of the cardia, colon cancer, myeloma, endometrial cancer, head and neck cancer, bladder cancer, rectal cancer, breast cancer, and myeloid leukemia.
The study was a joint effort by several major players in the medical industry dedicated to cancer research, including scientists with the division of cancer epidemiology and genetics from the National Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, and many other organizations from different countries, per report from The New York Times.