Study after study finds all sorts of health benefits from exercise and physical activity. Even if it's only in short bursts. A recent large study found that all physical activity is better than just sitting in reducing cancer risks by about 7% for at least 13 cancers that have been associated with inactivity.
Standing up reduces cancer risks from just sitting for hours. And moving in any way (light activity) reduced the cancer risks even more than just standing. But vigorous activity reduced cancer risks even more. As little as three minutes of daily vigorous activity (e.g., hurrying up flights of stairs) was equivalent to 90 minutes of light-intensity movement in reducing cancer risks.
Bottom line: Move, move, move - whenever you can. Even if it's only for a few minutes. And even if it's a gentle stroll. The average American sits about 9 1/2 hours a day - and research shows that is not good for health.
From the Washington Post: 3 minutes of this activity may cut the risk of 13 cancers, study finds
The study, published in July in BMC Medicine, is one of the first to examine in detail how replacing sitting time with almost any kind of activity alters cancer risk.
Relying on extensive activity data from nearly 60,000 men and women, it used statistical models to determine which movements, from standing to strolling to rushing around the block, seem most strongly associated with fewer cancer cases, including breast, colorectal and lung cancers.
“The reassuring finding is that every movement contributed,” said John J. Mitchell, a senior research fellow at University College London’s Institute of Sport, Exercise & Health, and the study’s lead author. But they didn’t contribute equally. “Some choices,” Mitchell said, “proved more beneficial than others.”
On average, American adults sit for nearly 10 hours a day, studies show. Being so sedentary is not good for us. Substantial evidence links uninterrupted sitting with heightened risks for heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, obesity and other conditions. Sitting also makes us more vulnerable to many cancers, studies show.
Ideally, we should reduce the amount of time we spend seated every day and be more physically active instead. But how? Does standing up count? Do we need to move around? Is it enough to meander slowly down the hallway? Or should we raise our heart rates and break a sweat?
So, for the new study, the scientists drew records for 59,218 adult men and women who’d joined the large-scale UK Biobank health study and worn a sophisticated activity tracker for a week.
Using machine learning algorithms, the researchers parsed everyone’s activity data and determined how much time they spent sitting (generally around 10 hours) or in other activities on most days, including standing up; light movement, such as leisurely walks; moderate activity, meaning brisker walks; or vigorous activities, which would get people breathing hard, such as running to catch a bus.
They also checked medical records for eight years or so after people joined the Biobank, to see whether they’d developed any of 13 cancers that have been associated with inactivity.
First, they looked at standing. Compared to nonstop sitting, standing up for any period of time reduced the cancer risks associated with sitting.
But standing was about half as potent as moving. In general, moving in any way, even short, gentle strolls, for about 15 minutes dropped cancer risks to the same extent as half an hour of standing.
The gains were even more striking when the researchers focused on different intensities of movement. Again, standing was better than sitting and light activity was better than standing.
But vigorous movement — such as hurrying up and down the stairs or rushing to the subway station — was, by far, the most effective. Three minutes of daily vigorous activity dropped cancer risks to the same extent as 90 minutes of light-intensity movement.
It also doesn’t explain how moving instead of sitting changes the likelihood of cancer, though muscles release a slew of biochemicals when they contract, Stamatakis said. Some of them likely jump-start physiological processes that dampen the development or progression of cancer.