Research

Hormonal

Higher levels of leisure-time physical activity are associated with a significantly reduced risk of developing colon cancer in men, with those in the highest activity quintile having approximately half the risk of those in the lowest.

Engage in regular leisure-time physical activity to lower your risk of colon cancer. You do not need to be an elite athlete; the study shows that even moderate activity levels (equivalent to about 1 hour of running or 3 hours of walking per week) are associated with a significantly reduced risk compared to being sedentary.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Physical activity was inversely associated with risk for colon cancer (high compared with low quintiles of average energy expenditure from leisure-time activities: relative risk, 0.53 [95% CI, 0.32 to 0.88], P for trend = 0.03)... Men in the highest quintile of physical activity had approximately half the incidence of colon cancer seen in men in the lowest quintile
Edward L. Giovannucci et al. · Annals of Internal Medicine · 1995

Why this rating

Large prospective cohort (n=47,723) with long follow-up and adjustment for multiple confounders, though observational design limits causal certainty.

Source

Physical Activity, Obesity, and Risk for Colon Cancer and Adenoma in Men

Edward L. Giovannucci et al. · Annals of Internal Medicine · 1995

DOI 10.7326/0003-4819-122-5-199503010-00002

cohort · n=47723Cited 1,016×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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