Cycling can reduce risk of prostate cancer

The results of a study published online this week in the British Journal of Cancer suggest that getting on your bike can reduce the likelihood of getting prostate cancer. Men who walked or cycled for an hour a day had a 14 percent lower risk than those who walked or cycled for 20 to 40 minutes a day.

And men who walked or cycled for longer, reduced their risk by 7 percent for every extra half an hour they exercised up to a maximum of two hours.

Prostate cancer is the third most common cause of death from cancer in men of all ages and the study, conducted by Swedish researchers, is the largest to have ever looked at the link between prostate cancer and exercise, and involved more than 45,000 Swedish men aged between 45 and 79.

The researchers looked at how likely men were to be diagnosed with prostate cancer in a 10-year period, compared with how physically active they were.

All the men were asked about their physical activity in the past year, and when aged 30 and 50 years old and they had to answer five questions about the amount of housework, walking or cycling, and other exercise they did, their inactive leisure time and their occupation, giving one of six levels of activity for each.

The researchers found that the more active men were throughout their life, the less likely they were to get prostate cancer, even after taking into account waist-hip ratio, height, history of diabetes, alcohol consumption, whether or not they smoked, education, total energy intake, how much dairy products and meat they ate and family history of prostate cancer.