title: Time spent walking and risk of colorectal cancer in Japan: the Miyagi Cohort study.
abstract: Higher levels of physical activity have been consistently associated with a lower risk of colon cancer in earlier epidemiological studies. The specific benefits of walking, however, remain relatively unexplored. In 1990, 20 519 men and 21 469 women in Japan completed a self-administered questionnaire including a question on time spent walking per day. During 7 years of follow-up, 260 cases of colorectal cancer were documented in 305 790 person-years. We used the Cox proportional hazards regression model to estimate the relative risk of incident cancer (colorectal, colon, and rectal) according to three levels of walking. Time spent walking was inversely associated with risk of colorectal cancer incidence in men. Compared with men who walked 0.5 h or less per day, the multivariate relative risks were 1.06 (95% confidence interval 0.72-1.57) for men who walked between 0.5 and 1 h per day, and 0.57 (95% confidence interval 0.38-0.83) for men who walked 1 h or more per day (P for trend=0.003). Time spent walking per day was associated with a lower risk of colon cancer in Japanese men but not in women, and there was no association between time spent walking and the risk of rectal cancer.
authors.affiliation: Division of Epidemiology, Department of Public Health and Forensic Medicine, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Seiryo, Aoba, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Hideko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Takahashi
authors.forename: Shinichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kuriyama
authors.forename: Yoshitaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tsubono
authors.forename: Naoki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Nakaya
authors.forename: Kazuki
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fujita
authors.forename: Yoshikazu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nishino
authors.forename: Daisuke
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Shibuya
authors.forename: Ichiro
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Tsuji
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015331:Cohort Studies; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012306:Risk; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013997:Time Factors; D016138:Walking