The impact of physical activity on all-cause mortality in men and women after a cancer diagnosis.
OBJECTIVE
Existing information regarding the impact of physical activity after a cancer diagnosis on all-cause mortality is limited. We examined the association between different types of physical activity (domestic, walking, sports) and mortality in 293 participants (65.5% women) with a cancer registration prior to the baseline assessment.


METHODS
Participants were drawn from the Scottish Health Surveys (1995, 1998, 2003) that were linked to a national database of cancer registrations and deaths. The main outcome was all-cause mortality during a mean follow-up period of 5.9 +/- 3.2 years. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate the risk of all-cause mortality by levels of physical activity.


RESULTS
There were 78 deaths during follow-up. The lowest risks for all-cause mortality were seen in sports activity groups [multivariable-adjusted hazard ratio (HR) for any compared with groups of no sports: 0.47, 95% CI 0.23-0.96, p = 0.039] although light and moderate activity such as domestic activity (HR = 1.04, 0.60-1.80) and regular walking (HR = 0.95, 0.57-1.56) did not confer protection.


CONCLUSIONS
Participation in an average of more than three sessions of vigorous exercise per week for at least 20 min/session was associated with the lowest risks of all-cause mortality following a cancer diagnosis. Vigorous physical activity could therefore be a more important determinant of survival than duration or total volume of exercise in cancer survivors.
Hamer
Mark
M
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, 1-19 Torrington Place, London, WC1E 6BT, UK. m.hamer@ucl.ac.uk
Stamatakis
Emmanuel
E
Saxton
John M
JM
D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality*