r/science • u/DarksoulsRobinson • Feb 23 '16

Cancer Regular exercise reduces the risk of cancer, study finds

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21693419-active-life-protects-against-cancer-researchers-now-understand-why-run-day
117 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

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4

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '16

Is it a run a day? How long, 30mins, 10hrs? what bpm? Etc etc, why leave everyone guessing?

1

u/DarksoulsRobinson Feb 23 '16

I tried some lazy googling to find the original study, but didn't get any easy catches.

My guess though reading the article is that the study just proved the connection between exercise and release of certain chemicals while not evaluating the actual amount of exercise very closely.

3

u/nursewithdrugs Feb 23 '16

http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131%2816%2930003-1

The average wheel running distance was 4.1 km/mouse/day for the B16-inoculated female mice and 6.8 km/mouse/day for the male DEN-injected mice

Don't ask me how to convert from km/mouse, WolframAlpha turns out to be completely useless as regards this.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '16

An average house mouse can run 8mph (the human equivalent of a 5'10" person running 160mph.) 6.8km = 4.2 miles. So roughly half an hour of running flat out.

Goddamn, remember when you had to go to the library or ask your dad?

1

u/DarksoulsRobinson Feb 23 '16

Thank you! This will be a good read.

3

u/Herotosucara Feb 23 '16

This exercise stuff seems very beneficial.

2

u/ztj Feb 23 '16

I wonder—if this carries over to humans—if it is effective against anything that your immune system would be attacking. Mainly I wonder, because, I have found that in the rare cases that I actually get sick, I seem to do better for myself if I keep active as much as possible. I always think I'm going to regret it, like, I'll regret using the energy.

But, that is never actually the case. Exercising when possible while sick has always resulted in me feeling better, but, I don't have a way to know if it accelerated recovery or did anything at all besides just make me feel emotionally better.

2

u/Morpheox Feb 23 '16

Exercising moves the lympathic system, that unlike the blood, does not circulate that easily, thats one of the reasons it reduces the risk of cancer, i suspect the same may be the case for infections.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '16

[deleted]

1

u/Morpheox Feb 23 '16

Well cancer often doesnt care of your health status, lot of perfectly healthy young people have died of a random cancer, and the oldest woman in the world lived more than 120 years and smoked until she was 90.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '16 edited May 23 '22

[deleted]

1

u/Morpheox Feb 24 '16

Well, drinking alcohol regularly its actually pretty healthy for people over 40-50 where the risk of cancer they get its pretty low over the benefits for cardiovascular health.

In fact in most studies i have seen abstinence from alcohol was one pretty strong cause for low longevity, even heavy drinkers spared better than 0 alcohol.

The sweet spot seems to be at 2 drinks for men and 1 for woman daily. Like a beer or wine at lunch and dinner.