Walk in the morning and evening to reduce cancer risk

Taking an early morning stroll and another in the evening can reduce your risk of bowel cancer.

Although walking is good for you, the time you do it could also be important—and the best times are around 8am in the morning and again at around 6pm in the evening.

Researchers from Regensburg University assessed the impact of exercise and activity on 86,252 people, aged between 42 and 79, who were tracked by the UK Biobank survey.  During the five years of the study, 529 people developed colorectal or bowel cancer.

The researchers split the participants into four activity groups: day-long activity, activity late in the day, activity in the morning and evening, and activity at midday and during the night.

Those who were active at around 8am and again at 6pm were the least likely to develop the cancer, and they reduced their risk by around 10 percent beyond the reduced risk achieved by activity at any time.

The researchers don’t know why the exercise pattern is important, although their findings have also been seen in other studies that found early morning exercise reduces the risk of breast and prostate cancers, while some researchers have instead favoured lunchtime and afternoon exercise as the best times to lower mortality overall.

Perhaps it’s not the time you exercise but the consistency that you do it around the same time every day, others have suggested.

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