Maintaining fitness earlier in life can dramatically reduce cancer risk: Study

A new study published on Tuesday (August 15) suggests that maintaining a healthy weight can significantly lower the chance of developing cancer. The study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that men with high levels of cardiorespiratory fitness in their 20s and 30s had a decreased risk of contracting nine different types of cancer.

This is not the first time, exercise has previously been associated with a lower risk of several cancers, however, there are few long-term and extensive cohort studies on various cancer locations.

More than one million young males in Sweden were monitored for an average of 33 years. It commenced when they participated in a military fitness test that, up until 2010.

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The men's cancer diagnosis rates were then analysed by the researchers, who also contrasted them with the levels of fitness indicated by their military fitness tests.

The authors monitored an individual's ability to engage in sustained aerobic exercises such as running, cycling, and swimming.

The authors then sorted participants into low, moderate, and high levels of cardiorespiratory fitness, a way to find out how well one's circulatory and respiratory systems provide oxygen to the muscles, based on the findings of the bike test.

In comparison to the low-fitness group, they discovered that persons with high levels of exercise had a 19% lower risk of head and neck cancer and a 20% lower risk of kidney cancer. There's a 42% reduced risk of lung cancer, and a 40% reduced risk of liver cancer.

Dr Aron Onerup, the lead author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in the paediatrics department at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, said that the risk of cancer generally continued to decrease as participants' fitness levels increased.

He said, "But you don't have to reach the top, elite athlete level to have a lower risk. An increase in fitness seems to be associated with a lower risk of developing most of these cancers."

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