sedentary behavior

Sitting for more than 30 minutes increases the risk of dying from cancer

3 months ago

Prolonged sedentary behavior (SB), defined as bouts lasting at least 30 minutes with over 90% sedentary time, is associated with higher risks of overall cancer mortality, incidence, obesity-related cancers, and type-2 diabetes-related cancers.
Interrupted SB (bouts less than 30 minutes or broken by activity) is linked to lower risks for the same cancer outcomes.
Replacing prolonged SB with physical activity reduces cancer risk: substituting 1 hour/day with light PA lowers cancer mortality risk by 12%, and replacing 30 minutes/day with moderate PA reduces risk by 8%.
Vigorous PA, even in short durations (e.g., 5 minutes/day), shows the strongest association with reduced cancer incidence.
The study used accelerometer data from 91,292 UK Biobank participants over a median 12.38-year follow-up, employing machine learning for SB classification.
No significant interaction was found between SB and obesity status (BMI, waist-to-hip ratio, waist-to-height ratio) for cancer risk associations.
Limitations include observational design, potential residual confounding, healthy volunteer bias, and limited context (e.g., work vs. leisure) from accelerometer data.