Women, this is some news you may not take sitting down. A new study on the effects of prolonged sitting has revealed a shocking statistic: it can increase the risk of acquiring cancer by as much as 94%.
The study, which has been conducted by American Cancer Society's strategic director Alpha Patel, PhD, extended time for leisure sitting doesn't only promote obesity but also boosts the chances of developing cancers on women especially breast, myeloma, and ovarian. Interestingly enough, there's no established link between cancers and men.
During the research, at least 140,000 men and women were considered as participants. The average rate of risk is about 10% for women. However, the risk can increase drastically if the women are not entirely active-that is, they don't exercise at all. By then, the possibility can be more than 90%.
Overall, however, sitting has already been found to cause serious diseases including cardiovascular and hypertension. The risk of dying from sitting for long periods is approximately 17% for men and close to 40% for women.
Based on an interview of Yahoo Health with a cancer expert in Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center, Dr Homayoon Sanati, the possible explanation for the disparity of cancer risks between genders is estrogen. Estrogen is a hormone produced by women and is responsible for different metabolic functions. However, its production is also linked to certain types of breast cancer.
According to him, the more time women spend in a sedentary lifestyle such as sitting, the more fat cells they produce. As more fat cells are created, the chances the body produce more estrogen also increase. In turn, the risks of having estrogens with genetic errors or mutations that can lead to cancers are also high.
This doesn't mean, though, men are already out of the woods. Prostate cancer, a very common male-related cancer, progresses very slowly it can take decades before the symptoms appear. It's possible that cancer wasn't caught by the time the study was conducted.
