Can Running Help Prevent Colon Cancer?

Physical activity, including exercise, is any bodily movement involving skeletal muscles. It is so crucial to use energy what you get from your diet and to maintain you healthy weight. Overall, it is essential for your overall health. And many experts believe that exercise can help reduce the risk of some cancers. How about running? Can it help prevent colon cancer?

There are lots of health advantages you gain from running. Even some small steps of fast walking can be so helpful, too. One of them is cardiorespiratory fitness advantage!

Cardiorespiratory fitness is the important ability of the heart in pumping the blood stronger and more effectively so thus muscles and cells of the body will use oxygen more efficiently. And with regular exercise such as with running, you can be as much as 3 times more effective in using oxygen than when you are becoming a sedentary individual.

The next crucial benefit is to help burn more you excess weight! Running is one of the most effective exercises to burn more calories. And there are numerous health benefits you gain if you have healthy weight, including lower risk of colon cancer.

Other benefits include:

1. Strong lungs! Running can help strengthen lungs. You will have increased lung capacity and better respiratory system from logging mile after mile.
2. Good for your blood circulation! This cardio exercise can help control your bad cholesterol, boost HDL (good cholesterol), and improve your blood pressure.
3. Great for your immune system! Runners are more likely to have fewer minor illnesses than sedentary individuals.
4. Strong legs and low risk of osteoporosis! Each step of running stresses the bones. And this make more essential minerals go to the bones, making them stronger.
5. Strong muscles and more stable joints! With consistent training, your joints and muscles will be easier to withstand more uneven terrain and more mileage.

It also can help boost your productivity at workplace, improve your confidence and your general health. What else?

Running may also be used as a remedy for some psychological problems. Even experts say that sometime the psychological benefits far outweigh the physical demands.

Some doctors use running to help treat depression, anxiety, stress, or other psychological problems because they believe that it can work as well as conventional psychotherapy. How does it work?

It can help make patients less depressed, less tense, less confused, and less fatigued. It provides something that makes patients focus on it, so thus they tend to forget the problem.

Furthermore, it also has shown outstanding results when involved to help treat addictions to alcohol.

In addition to the health advantages mentioned above, researchers are observing the link between exercise and some cancers. Most experts believe that your exercise can affect your risk of some cancers.

There is strong evidence that exercise is linked to lower risk of cancers of breast and colon. Other studies also found that it might help reduce the risk of cancers of lung, prostate, and endometrial cancer.

Despite these great benefits, unfortunately there are still many people who don’t engage in enough regular exercise!

If exercise does have a significant effect in reducing the risk of some cancers, how much do you need?

The answer may vary. But in general, it’s recommended for adults to have regularly moderate-intensity exercise for at least a half hour on 5 /more days of the week – or – regularly vigorous-intensity exercise for at least 20 minutes on 3 /more days of the week!

When it comes to the issue of the link between exercise and the risk of cancers, colorectal cancers (these include cancers of colon and rectum) may be one of the most extensively observed in many researches.

Many of these researches have consistently showed that people who increase their exercise (including intensity, frequency, or duration) have lower risk of colon cancer by about 30-40 percent – especially if compared with sedentary individuals.

It seems that high-intensity exercises have the greatest magnitude of the protective effect. And running can be one of your options for this kind of exercise!

Nevertheless, the duration and frequency are also important. Even some experts say that the most important thing is how to make it on regular basis!

All the benefits of your exercise can be almost useless if you cannot make it as a part of your lifestyle. In other words, it’s so important to do it regularly!

If running does help reduce your risk, how does it help? The answer may be not fully understood yet.

It may help in multiple ways, but its role in helping to control your weight may be the most significant effect in reducing the risk and protecting against colon cancer. In fact, it has been confirmed that both overweight and obesity can increase the risk.

Moreover, it may help through its role in improving hormone metabolism, insulin function, and altering a number of immune & inflammatory factors!

Since colon is a part of your digestive system, your diet is also a crucial thing you need to concern! See also other lifestyle measures to prevent colon cancer in this complete guide!