Good cardiorespiratory fitness when young is related to as much as a 40% lower risk of developing 9 specific cancers later on-; no less than in men-; suggests a big long-term study published online within the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

These include cancers of the top and neck, food pipe (esophagus), stomach, pancreas, liver, bowel, kidney, and lung.

Cardiorespiratory fitness refers to an individual’s ability to do aerobic exercise, similar to running, cycling, and swimming for sustained periods, and even to climb stairs. It’s known to be related to lower risks of certain cancers, but few large, long-term studies of multiple cancer sites have been reported.

The researchers, due to this fact, drew on linked Swedish registry data as much as the top of 2019, covering background information, medical diagnoses, and deaths for conscripts who began their military service between 1968 and 2005.

At first of their stint, after they were aged between 16 and 25, conscripts underwent an ordinary battery of assessments. These included height, weight (BMI), blood pressure, muscular strength and cardiorespiratory fitness.

Conscripts with a low level of cardiorespiratory fitness were barely more more likely to be obese, more more likely to have a history of alcohol and substance misuse, and to have parents with lower educational attainment than conscripts with the next fitness level.

In all, 365,874 conscripts had a low level of cardiorespiratory fitness; 519,652 had a moderate level; and 340,952 had a high level.

The ultimate evaluation included greater than 1 million men (1,078,000), 84,117 (7%) of whom subsequently developed cancer in no less than one site during a mean monitoring period of 33 years.

Compared with men with a low level of fitness at conscription, higher cardiorespiratory fitness was linearly related to a lower risk of developing specific sorts of cancer.

It was related to a 5% lower risk of rectal cancer (2337); a 12% lower risk of pancreatic cancer (1280); an 18% lower risk of bowel cancer (3222); a 19% lower risk of head and neck cancer (2738 men); a 20% lower risk of kidney cancer (1753); a 21% lower risk of stomach cancer (902); a 39% lower risk of food pipe cancer (689); a 40% lower risk of liver cancer (1111); and a 42% lower risk of lung cancer (1635).

But higher cardiorespiratory fitness was also related to a 7% heightened risk of prostate cancer (14, 232 men) and a 31% heightened risk of skin cancer (23, 064). Prostate cancer screening and exposure to sunlight might account for these findings, suggest the researchers.

That is an observational study, so no firm conclusions might be drawn about cause and effect, and the researchers acknowledge that they did not have full data on other potentially influential lifestyle risk aspects, similar to food regimen, alcohol intake, and smoking, specifically. Nor were they in a position to track any changes in cardiorespiratory fitness over time or gather any genetic information on participants.

Nevertheless, their findings are reflected within the American Society of Clinical Oncology guidelines on exercise during cancer treatment, they indicate.

And so they conclude: “This study shows that higher fitness in healthy young men is related to a lower hazard of developing 9 out of 18 investigated site-specific cancers, with probably the most clinically relevant hazard rates within the gastrointestinal tract.

“These results might be utilized in public health policymaking, further strengthening the motivation for promoting interventions aimed toward increasing [cardiorespiratory fitness] in youth.”