Just 7,000 steps reduce cancer risk

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Physical activity can protect against cancer if you take around 7,000 steps a day. This resulted from a recent study involving around 85,000 British test subjects with a mean age of 63.

Alaina Shreves from the US National Cancer Institute and her co-authors from the UK and Portugal analyzed people’s data from the UK Biobank. The analysis was based on physical activity in daily life, not sporting activity. The subjects were 85,394 people aged around 63 years. They all wore a device to measure their physical activity for one week when they were included in the study. The average observation period for the occurrence of cancer was 5.8 years. By the time of the analysis, 2,633 people had been diagnosed with a malignant disease.

The analysis clearly showed that the risk of developing the disease depends on the level of physical activity in daily life. This involved completely “normal” activities such as shopping, household chores, etc. “An effect was detectable from around 7,000 steps. These people were eleven percent less likely to develop cancer than those with a daily step count of 5,000. When increasing from 7,000 to 9,000 steps per day, the risk fell by a further 16 percent,” wrote the Deutsches Ärzteblatt.
Another significant result, according to the scientists in the “British Journal of Sports Medicine”: “The number of steps taken daily showed an inverse correlation with cancer. However, this dose dependence began to plateau at around 9,000 steps daily.” More daily exercise beyond this level showed no additional preventive effect.

It is not yet clear how this works. For example, a reduction in oestrogen and growth factor levels in the blood is suspected. Physical activity also reduces insulin levels. This metabolic hormone is also associated with cancer. Lower body weight, in turn, dampens underlying inflammatory reactions, which are suspected of promoting the development of many diseases in the long term, including cardiovascular diseases caused by atherosclerosis.