How does exercise help prevent cancer?

Want to prevent cancer? Fitness expert Mike Clark, DPT, explains how exercise and everyday physical activity cuts your risk of colon and other types of cancer risk by up to 15%.

Transcript

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Researchers think that physical activity may have a beneficial effect on certain hormones that influence the growth and spread of tumors.

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In the study, exercise seemed to have the most impact on colon, liver, and pancreatic cancer risk in men.

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Dr. Clark here, with an easy way to drop your risk of any type of cancer by 10% to 15%. Get moving. Research shows that an active lifestyle that

00:35

includes exercise and staying busy through much of the day helps reduce your risk of several different types of cancer. In a study of 80,000 Japanese adults,

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researchers found that women who were the most active were 16% less likely to develop any type of cancer

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over a 5 to 10 year period. The most active men dropped their risk by about 13%. But it wasn't just the exercise that researchers tracked.

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They counted any day-to-day activities, including walking to the store, doing housework, and working on a physically demanding hobby researchers.

01:07

Think that physical activity may have a beneficial effect on certain hormones that influence the growth and spread of tumors.

01:13

In the study, exercise seemed to have the most impact on colon, liver, and pancreatic cancer risk in men.

01:19

For women, physical activity was particularly protective against stomach cancer. It's just another smart reason to stay active.