Obese men face the same risk too.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: A who sit too muchnew study published in “Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention” reveals that women who sit too much during their leisure time have an increased risk of cancer, reported the Today Show.
The study included 184,000 adults aged 50 to 70, who were enrolled in American Cancer Society Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort. Participants answered a questionnaire about how many hours they work, exercise, complete household activities, and sit for leisure, which is sitting to watch TV, reading, or playing with electronic gadgets. Then the researchers followed the 69,260 men for about 13 years and the 77,462 women for about 16 and compared their behaviors to their health.
While men in general did not have an increased risk of cancer, the study did find that obese men who sat for long periods of time experienced an 11 percent higher risk of cancer.
“It’s interesting you don’t see the effect in men as strongly because when we look at physical activity it’s a risk factor for certain cancers in men, too. I think maybe something about those particular cancers like ovarian and invasive breast cancer and endometrial that it’s driven by something that’s effected by the sitting behavior,” Karen Basen-Engquist, director of the Center for Energy Balance and Cancer Prevention and Survivorship at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, told the Today Show.
In an interview with CBS News in 2013, Basen-Engquist, who was not involved with the recent research, cited a 2012 study showed that sitting less than three hours a day may add up to two years to your life. Long periods of sitting has been tied to increased risk of weight gain, diabetes, heart disease and certain forms of cancer including colorectal, ovarian and endometrial, Basen-Engquist said.
According to the new study, women who sat more than six hours a day had a 10 percent greater risk of getting any cancer compared to ladies who sat for less than three hours. Those who sat for more than six hours daily had a 65 percent increased risk for multiple myeloma, a 10 percent increased risk for invasive breast cancer, and a 43 percent higher risk for ovarian cancer than their peers sitting for three hours or less.