Exercising in teen year cuts risk of early death in women

After analyzing the data and adjusting for socioeconomic factors in adult life, the researchers found that women who exercised in their teens and as adults had a 20 percent lower risk of death from all causes compared to other women.

It’s known that regular exercise can help to ward off a number of health implications, such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

Assistant professor of medicine Dr Sarah Nechuta said: “In women, adolescent exercise participation, regardless of adult exercise, was associated with reduced risk of cancer and all-cause mortality”.

Researchers at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville, TN studied 75,000 Chinese women between age 40 and 70.

Every two to three years, the participants are interviewed in person to obtain information on adult lifestyle-related factors and mortality outcome. Blood and urine samples were also taken. The data stated that there were around 5,282 deaths after an average of around 13 years of follow-up, out of these around 2,375 women died from cancer and 1,620 women from cardiovascular diseases.

The researchers found that the women in the study who did at least some exercise as teens, up to 80 minutes weekly, had a 16 percent lower risk of death from cancer, and a 15 percent lower risk of dying from any causes over the 13-year study than the women who did not exercise at all during adolescence.

Ms Nechuta concluded: ‘Our results support the importance of promoting exercise participation in adolescence to reduce mortality in later life and highlight the critical need for the initiation of disease prevention early in life.’.

The authors noted that this study may contain errors because the women were recalling exercise at an earlier life stage.

The findings of the study, published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, show that staying active for about 1.3 hours per week can result in positive effects to health as they grow older. As the Scientific Partner of Stand Up To Cancer, the AACR provides expert peer review, grants administration, and scientific oversight of team science and individual investigator grants in cancer research that have the potential for near-term patient benefit.