A new study has revealed that the risk of developing cancer reduces later in life for women who used to be physically active during their teenage years.
Researchers from the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville analyzed the data of women who were able to keep an active lifestyle for at least 1.3 hours weekly during their teens and saw the benefits of this in their adult years.
Over 75,000 women from China, between the ages of 40 to 70-years-old, were the study participants and the researchers surveyed them regarding their activities when they were 13 to 19-years-old. The experts also conducted one on one interviews, as well as regular physical exams for three years, while the observation of the participants covered a period of 13 years. The researchers took note of any diseases the women developed during the study.
"The main finding is that exercise during adolescence is associated with a reduced risk of mortality, or death, in middle aged to older women," said Sarah J. Nechuta, an assistant professor of medicine and one of the authors of the study, according to Reuters.
The findings saw that there were 5,282 deaths among the women respondents, including 2,375 from cancer and 1,620 from cardiovascular disease.
However, the experts noted that those who regularly exercised in their teens lowered their risk of dying from cancer by 16 percent, and lowered their risk of dying from other medical causes by 15 percent. Those who were into sports during their teens, on the other hand, had lowered risk from cancer by 14 percent, and a 10 percent lowered risk from dying from other medical causes. Those who did both exercises and sports, meanwhile, lowered all the health risks by as much as 20 percent.
"Our results support the importance of promoting exercise participation in adolescence and highlight the critical need for the initiation of disease prevention early in life," said Nechuta in the press release.
"While we found adolescent exercise to be associated with lowered risk of death from cancer and cardiovascular disease as adults, some associations were attenuated after adjusting for adult factors that may influence mortality later in life, such as exercise, diet, body mass index [BMI], socioeconomic status, and a history of chronic diseases. However, it is important to note that adult factors, such as adult exercise, BMI, and chronic diseases are potentially influenced by adolescent exercise, and adjusting for adult factors in these types of studies may not always be the best approach, as over adjustment could be a concern," Nechuta added.
Some of the exercise data was self-reported, however, which the researchers accounted for in their study's limitations.
The findings were published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
