Fitness = Lower Cancer

A study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that men whose cardiorespiratory fitness improved over time were less likely to develop prostate cancer.

Research increasingly shows that good cardiovascular and respiratory fitness can lower cancer risk and improve outcomes.

However, earlier studies on prostate cancer, which only looked at fitness at a single point in time, have had mixed results.

Dr. Kate Bolam from the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences GIH in Stockholm, along with her team, explored connections between changes in cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and the rates of prostate cancer and related deaths.

“In this study of working Swedish men, we found that improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness were linked to a lower risk of developing prostate cancer, though not necessarily lower mortality,” the researchers stated.

“Encouraging better CRF in adult men might reduce prostate cancer risk.”

The research used data from the Health Profile Institute in Sweden, studying over 180,000 men who underwent workplace health assessments between 1982 and 2019.

Prostate cancer data came from national registries.

The study considered men who had undergone two or more CRF tests at least 11 months apart.

These tests measure how well oxygen is delivered from the heart and lungs to muscles during exercise, using heart rate data from stationary biking to estimate oxygen consumption.

Men who saw a 20% change in CRF in one year were excluded, resulting in a study group of 57,652 men.

Their average age at the start was 41 years, and their average body mass index was 26, which is considered overweight.

Over an average follow-up of 6.7 years, 592 men (1%) were diagnosed with prostate cancer, and 46 (0.08%) died from it.

The researchers found that better cardiorespiratory fitness was clearly linked to a lower risk of prostate cancer, but not lower mortality.

Overall, improved fitness was associated with a 2% reduction in prostate cancer risk. If fitness improved by at least 3% per year, men were 35% less likely to develop prostate cancer compared to those whose fitness declined by 3%.

The authors noted that the number of prostate cancer deaths might have been too low to show a clear link to fitness levels.

When participants were grouped by their initial fitness levels, the most significant reductions in prostate cancer risk were seen in men who started with moderate fitness, with a risk reduction of 15%.

For those who were very fit or very unfit initially, the risk reduction was less marked.

The researchers concluded that men who are already very fit might not be able to improve their fitness enough to further reduce their cancer risk.

Conversely, men with low fitness levels might have other health issues, like obesity, that affect their prostate cancer risk.

Source: cancerhealth

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