Consistent exercise linked to lower risk of colon cancer death

WASHINGTON - A new research has found that consistent exercise is associated with a lower risk of dying from colon cancer.

The study, led by researchers at the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, is among the first to show that physical activity can make the disease less deadly.

The Washington University researchers worked with colleagues from the American Cancer Society and examined data from the American Cancer Society Prevention Study II (CPS II) to look at whether changes in physical activity influenced either the incidence of colon cancer diagnosis or the risk of death from the disease.

The CPS II study included more than 150,000 men and women. To determine how exercise affected colon cancer, the researchers compared their levels of physical activity between 1982 and 1997, and linked those activity levels both to the number of colon cancer diagnoses between 1998 and 2005, and to the number of colon cancer deaths that occurred between 1998 and 2006.

It turned out that those who exercised consistently for at least 10 years had the lowest risk of colon cancer death.

“People who were consistently active over the course of their adulthood had a lower risk of death from colon cancer than those who were sedentary,” says first author Kathleen Y. Wolin. (ANI)