Research
Hormonal
Biologic mechanisms linking physical activity, sedentary behavior, and obesity to cancer risk include effects on endogenous insulin sensitivity, chronic sex steroids, metabolic hormones, and inflammation.
Understanding that exercise and weight management affect hormones and inflammation helps explain why these lifestyle factors prevent cancer.
GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
The main biologic mechanisms whereby physical activity, sedentary behavior, and obesity are related to cancer incidence include an effect on endogenous insulin sensitivity, and chronic sex steroids and metabolic hormones, inflammation.
Why this rating
Well-established pathways, though exact molecular mechanisms are incompletely defined.
Source
Physical activity, obesity and sedentary behavior in cancer etiology: epidemiologic evidence and biologic mechanisms
Christine M. Friedenreich et al. · Molecular Oncology · 2020
DOI 10.1002/1878-0261.12772
narrative_reviewCited 653×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Higher levels of physical activity reduce the risk of six specific cancer sites (bladder, breast, colon, endometrial, esophageal adenocarcinoma, gastric cardia) with strong evidence, while moderate evidence supports inverse associations with lung, ovarian, pancreatic, and renal cancers.Strong
- Obesity (excess body fatness) is a convincing risk factor for at least 13 different cancer sites, including endometrial, postmenopausal breast, colorectal, esophageal, renal, meningioma, pancreatic, gastric cardia, liver, multiple myeloma, ovarian, gallbladder, and thyroid cancers.Strong
- High levels of sedentary behavior independently increase the risk of colon, endometrial, and lung cancers, regardless of physical activity levels.Good
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