Active youth linked to much lower risk of getting cancer

Research has found an active childhood can cut your chance of getting several types of cancer by up to 40 per cent.

Active youth can cut the risk of cancer by up to 40 per cent, a new study shows.

Keeping fit when you are young can cut the risk of developing nine types of cancer in later life by up to 40 per cent, a study suggests.

Research using the military and health records of more than a million Swedish conscripts revealed that those with better cardiorespiratory fitness in their late teens and early twenties had lower rates of many cancers when older. The chances of getting cancer in the head and neck, oesophagus, stomach, pancreas, liver, bowel, kidney or lung all appeared lower in people who had been fitter as young men.

The research team, from the University of Gothenburg, said their results strengthened the case for interventions to boost the fitness of young people.

Writing in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, they concluded: “This study shows that higher fitness in healthy young men is associated with a lower hazard of developing nine out of 18 investigated site-specific cancers, with the most clinically relevant hazard rates in the gastrointestinal tract.

“These results could be used in public health policymaking, further strengthening the incentive for promoting interventions aimed at increasing cardiorespiratory fitness in youth.”

People who have better cardiorespiratory fitness in their late teens and early twenties significantly reduce their chance of getting cancer.

Almost a third of people aged 16 to 24 in England are not classed as physically active, meaning they do not meet guidelines of at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity a week. Moderate activity raises the breathing rate and includes the likes of brisk walking, riding a bike, dancing and pushing a lawn mower.

Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) measures how well the heart, lungs and linked systems work to get oxygen to muscles during periods of sustained activity. The conscripts, aged between 16 and 25, underwent tests of CRF on exercise bikes between 1968 and 2005. The researchers used linked Swedish health registry data to see who went on to have cancer diagnosed during an average follow-up period of 33 years.

The lower risks they found varied by cancer. It ranged from a 5 per cent lower risk of bowel cancer among those with high fitness levels compared with those with low levels, to a 42 per cent lower risk of lung cancer.

The risks were 12 per cent lower for pancreatic cancer, 18 per cent for bowel, 19 per cent for head and neck, 20 per cent for kidney, 21 per cent for stomach, 39 per cent for oesophageal and 40 per cent for liver.

The study also found that higher fitness levels remained protective even when the recruits’ body mass index (BMI) was taken into account, suggesting that increasing fitness was “beneficial, regardless of body weight”.

However, they also found that higher fitness was linked to a higher risk of prostate and skin cancer. The researchers said those trends might be driven by prostate cancer screening and exposure to sunlight.

Studies presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting this year linked higher rates of physical activity to lower rates of post-cancer problems like fatigue, as well as cancer relapse and death.

The study was observational and so cannot prove the higher fitness caused the lower rates of cancer. The researchers also cautioned that they did not have access to full data on factors such as diet, alcohol intake and smoking and so could not fully account for those.

Dr Claire Knight, of Cancer Research UK, said: “The NHS recommends 150 minutes of activity a week, but it’s fine to build up activity over time and there are lots of ways to be more active. You don’t need to run a marathon or join a gym - anything that gets you warmer, slightly out of breath, and your heart beating faster counts.”

The Times