Cancer Risks Increase by 10 Percent among Sedentary Women

A new study conducted by medical experts at the American Cancer Society postulates that cancer risks increase by 10 percent among sedentary women. This conclusion was reached after researchers compared the evolution of 146,000 male and female respondents, showing that men are not directly affected by leisure sitting.

Prolonged sitting has long been condemned by medical experts and nutritionists because it can lead to many diseases and locomotive affections. A recent experiment conducted by the American Cancer Society shows things could be a lot more serious than we initially believed.

The research was carried out with the help of 146,000 female and male respondents, whose medical condition was closely observed between 1992 and 2009. At the beginning of the experiment, the 77,462 women and 69,260 men were cancer free, but their condition suffered significant modifications as the years went by.

Based on the details provided by investigators, many of the female respondents taking part in the experiment (12,236 women) were diagnosed with cancer during this interval. The majority of them developed ovarian, breast and bone marrow cancer as they added two extra hours to the sedentary time they usually spent on a daily basis.

The male participants, on the other hand, did not encounter such difficulties during the experiment. 18,555 men developed one type of cancer, but scientists could not find any particular link between the time they have spent on their couch and their newly acquired medical condition.

Given the new discovery that scientists have made, the American Cancer Society recommends women to reduce sitting time as much as possible or to alternate it with physical exercises. Prolonged sitting was initially held responsible for many of the locomotive problems that women develop at an advanced age, but the risks could be a lot bigger.

The current research will be complemented by additional studies that scientists plan on conducting to better explain this difference between men and women.

Similar initiatives were carried through in the past by the University of Regensburg in Germany and the University of Leicester. The first study showed that prolonged sitting is responsible for many of the lung and bowel cancer instances. Experts at the University of Leicester analyzed the medical records of 800,000 respondents and concluded that sedentariness increases risks of diabetes and heart diseases.

The findings of the recent research will be published in the journal of the American Cancer Society.

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