Exercise cuts the risk more than just losing weight. People who reduce their BMI (body-mass index) score lessen their risk for just three of the 13 cancers, and then only slightly.
But those who exercise moderately or intensely in their leisure time are far less likely than a sedentary person to develop 13 of 26 cancers that were monitored. Assessing exercise levels and rates of cancers among 1.4 million participants, researchers from the National Cancer Institute discovered that exercise had the most protective effect with esophageal adenocarcinoma – cancer of the gullet – which had a reduced risk of 42 per cent, followed by liver cancer (27 per cent), lung cancer (26 per cent), and kidney (23 per cent).
It’s reckoned that 51 per cent of Americans, and 31 per cent of people worldwide, lead sedentary, inactive lives.
(Source: JAMA Internal Medicine, 2016; doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.1548)
