A novel study has shown that spending ten years or more in sedentary job, almost doubled the risk of certain types of bowel cancer. Even people with desk jobs who regularly go to gym to keep them fit are still prone to get a tumour.
The study also supports earlier study which showed that men with sedentary jobs are thirty percent more prone to be diagnosed with prostate cancer in comparison to those with active occupations. The latest study by of experts at the University of Western Australia, showed longer periods of physical inactivity during the day could also be a major risk.
The Australian team compared the working pattern of more than nine hundred victims of bowel cancer with more than one thousand cancer-free participants. The study participants were asked about their job history, lifestyles and levels of physical activity. The employees who spent more than ten years in sedentary jobs were more than ninety percent prone to suffer bowel tumour in the distal colon.
The distal colon is a large part of the bowel which joins up with the rectum. It was also found that sedentary working patterns raised the odds of cancer of the rectum by forty-four percent over a period of ten years. The findings recommend that no time of free time workout can counteract the damage done from long periods of sitting down on the job.
The report of findings explained that those who spent the most time in sedentary work had a risk of distal colon cancer that was twice than those who spent the most time in a job needing light activity. Even a high level of energetic recreational physical activity did not alter the effect of sedentary work.
According to Dr Claire Knight, health information officer from Cancer Research UK, the findings support other studies on physical inactivity and cancer. But the findings need to be reproduced in larger studies. Even small amounts of physical activity can be good for your health. Being physically active also helps in keeping a healthy body weight.
Sedentary job is believed to escort to increased blood sugar levels and damage insulin production, both of which have been associated with the development of bowel cancer. It could also escort to inflammation deep inside the body, another recognized risk aspect for tumours. The findings were published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.