As men get older, they may start to worry about the wellness of their heart. It is well document that having a fit and active lifestyle can help to benefit your cardiovascular wellbeing, but it is also now known that fitness can help to improve your chances of dying from certain types of cancer too. Due to this, middle aged men are being advised to increase their levels of cardiovascular fitness in order to reduce their chances of dying from colorectal or lung cancer in later life.
The study was carried out on a group of 17,049 men over a period of 20 years. The men were aged 50 years on average. The association between levels of fitness and the risk of lung, prostate and colorectal cancer was identified.
The incidences of cancer are thought to be on the increase, and so it is vitally important to work out what the links are and how to break free of them, to improve mortality rates, especially from these deadly forms of cancer that commonly affect men.
During the study, men’s fitness was tested by putting them on a treadmill at walking pace and then altering the elevation and the speed of the treadmill. Their performance was then monitored.
Follow ups were then carried out over a period of 20 years to continually assess fitness and also to ascertain which of the men had fallen victim to colorectal, lung or prostate cancer in the meantime.
Data showed that of the men surveyed, 2,332 of them were diagnosed with prostate cancer, 276 were diagnosed with colorectal cancer and 277 of them developed lung cancer. There were 347 deaths from cancer and 159 deaths from cardiovascular disease.
It was then found that the men who developed cancer were the ones who had done worst on their fitness test, showing a clear link between fitness and cancer risk.