Lifting weights cuts cancer risk in men — by 40 per cent!
A team of experts, led by scientists from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, tracked the lifestyles of 8,677 men aged between 20 and 82 for more than two decades.
Each volunteer had regular medical check ups that included tests of their muscular strength.
Between 1980 and 2003, researchers monitored how many developed cancer and subsequently died from it.
The results showed men who regularly worked out with weights and had the highest muscle strength were between 30 and 40 per cent less likely to lose their life to a deadly tumour.
I am vindicated!
Is it because the muscle-bound types all died earlier from heart failure?
That doesn’t mean it’s causal. They didn’t take a random sample of men and put part of them on exercise regime. Most likely the type of guy who gets big muscles or has motivation to go lift weights is also the type of person who does not get cancer.
Like most “lifestyle” studies this is highly suspect.
Yeah, this is an observational study that doesn’t support an X→Y headline. It equally supports the opposite, i.e. that men who have lower cancer risk find it easier to gain muscle and are more likely to sustain an interest like weightlifting.