New Study Finds An Easy 3-Minute Habit Could Lower Your Cancer Risk

Attention desk shrimps who hunch all day over laptops: Get up right now to save your health ― or else.

According to a July study published in BMC Medicine, moving just a few more minutes each day can make a significant difference in your well-being, lowering your risk for up to 13 different cancers. In fact, squeezing just three minutes of daily vigorous activity like jogging or rushing up stairs could significantly lower multiple cancer risks, the study found.

Conversely, the more you sit each day, the higher your cancer risks. In the study, participants who replaced 30 minutes of movement with 30 minutes of sitting increased cancer risks by 8%.

“Every movement counts in the day,” said John J. Mitchell, the study’s lead author and a senior research fellow at University College London’s Institute of Sport, Exercise & Health. “Our movement across the whole 24-hours adds up, and every behavior has a knock-on effect.”

To figure out the benefits of daily movement, researchers measured 59,218 adult participants’ daily activity with smartwatches that tracked how fast they moved and if they were sitting, reclining or standing for a week.

The researchers then analyzed medical records eight years after people participated in the activity tracker study to see whether they got 13 cancers associated with physical inactivity, including bladder, breast, bowel, kidney and stomach cancers. From there, the researchers created statistical models to see whether replacing sedentary time with more daily movements would theoretically lower those cancer risks.

Moving at any intensity was better at lowering participants’ cancer risks than sedentary behavior, but adding more vigorous movements was the most effective at lowering cancer risks.

Mitchell said that “replacing sitting time in our day with any movement, or even standing, could add up to reduce our risk of cancer, but with perhaps the most theoretical benefits observed from building in even just a few minutes of more intensive activities into our day.”

This study adds to a larger body of research which shows that daily walks and short bursts of moderate activity are very good for us.

“Our physiology favors moving intermittently in healthy postures throughout the day,” said Alan Hedge, an ergonomics expert and professor emeritus for the human centered design department at Cornell University. Hedge was not affiliated with the study. “This new research adds another dimension to the arguments against a sedentary lifestyle and the detrimental health effects of oversitting.”

Why does moving your body with more intensity help with lowering cancer risk? One reason may be because “moderate or vigorous activities trigger positive physiological mechanisms such as reducing inflammation and cutting diabetes risk, and improving the cardiovascular system, which are all important,” Mitchell suggested.

But know that you don’t need to be working out at a gym to get those potential cancer-reducing benefits. Simply choose more activities throughout your day that get your body up and moving.

Mitchell noted that beneficial higher intensity movements participants had could have come from dedicated exercise time, but even everyday vigorous movements like rushing for a bus, or up the stairs, or playing with children “are just as important for cutting risk.”

So the next time you spend a day sitting, remember to get up to take a break to walk your dog, stroll around your block or play tag with kids. Your future body will thank you.