As if you didn’t need any more positive reasons to get to the gym, here’s yet another one: According to a new study, exercise may decrease your risk of dying from colon cancer!
The United Press International reported that U.S. researchers analyzed physical activity levels and colon cancer deaths among more than 150,000 men and women. They found that those who exercised consistently for at least 10 years were the least likely to die from colon cancer. The study I’m referring to appears in the Cancer Epidemiology journal.
An article on the study by the American Medical Network website quotes, “This ambitious new study has added considerable weight to the claim that exercise can lower your risk for colon cancer. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Harvard University combined and analyzed several decades worth of data from past studies on how exercise affects colon cancer risk. They found that people who exercised the most were 24 percent less likely to develop the disease than those who exercised the least.” Twenty four percent, you say? Not bad. Not bad at all.
“What’s really compelling is that we see the association between exercise and lower colon cancer risk regardless of how physical activity was measured in the studies,” says lead study author Kathleen Y. Wolin, Sc.D., a cancer prevention and control expert with the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University. “That indicates that this is a robust association and gives all the more evidence that physical activity is truly protective against colon cancer.” Colorectal cancer is the third most common type of cancer. Each year more than 100,000 people in the United States alone are diagnosed with colon cancer and about 40,000 are diagnosed with rectal cancer. The study suggests that if the American population became significantly more physically active, up to 24 percent, or more than 24,000, fewer cases of colon cancer would occur each year.” When they put it like that, it makes it hard to argue with the numbers….
In all, they analyzed 52 studies going back as far as 1984, making their analysis the most comprehensive to date. “The beneficial effect of exercise holds across all sorts of activities,” says Wolin, also assistant professor of surgery. “And it holds for both men and women. There is an ever-growing body of evidence that the behavior choices we make affect our cancer risk. Physical activity is at the top of the list of ways that you can reduce your risk of colon cancer.”
It’s true that many people wonder whether exercise will help them stay healthy. And now it looks like exercise can have even more beneficial effects than meet the eye! The final word from Kathleen Wolin is, “It’s never too late to start exercising, but it’s also never too early to start being active.” So get off that couch!
Today’s Workout:
Buy-in: 5 rounds of – 2 hang power snatches, 2 overhead squats. Add weight if needed but focus on technical accuracy.
*Coaches allow athletes to warm up for running after the buy in if needed*
WOD: “Cherry Picker”
This one’s for those of you who check the website first before deciding if you want to come in and train… 😉 “cherry picking” is the art of only doing the stuff you feel like doing and a lot of people are pretty good at it. So buck the trend, pop into the Zone, and have a nice fun WOD!
Turts
For time:
- Run 800m
- 20 burpees
- Run 400m
- 20 burpees
- Run 400m
- 20 burpees
- Run 800m
Zone 2: Scale all runs to 400m, burpees to 10
Zone 1: Scale as needed
Cash-Out: Follow the leader stretches
