Insight

Sami Mansfield: The role that physical activity and exercise play in reducing risk in cancer

Sami (Papacek) Mansfield/LinkedIn

Feb 18, 2025, 17:18

Sami Mansfield: The role that physical activity and exercise play in reducing risk in cancer

Sami Mansfield, Founder of Cancer Wellness for Life, shared a post on LinkedIn by Brendon Stubbs, Senior Researcher at King’s College London, adding:

“An important paper in February which is cancer prevention month and the role that physical activity and exercise play in reducing risk.

While there isn’t truly prevention, focusing on risk-reduction behaviors is critical, especially with the increase in young adults especially in colorectal cancer and knowledge that 42% of cancer diagnoses are linked to lifestyle.

Let’s continue to both address mental health and use exercise as a strategy to improve outcomes!”

Quoting Brendon Stubbs’ post about a paper by André Oliveira Werneck et al. published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health:

“New paper – Psychological distress in our early 20’s may affect our physical activity levels decades later.

Using data from two major British cohort studies spanning multiple decades, we’ve uncovered novel insights into how mental health in early adulthood influences exercise habits throughout life.

Key findings:

Early psychological distress (in your 20s) predicts lower likelihood of maintaining regular physical activity into middle age
This pattern was consistent across two generations (people born in 1958 and 1970)
The effects persist even after accounting for various life factors

Now association does not mean causation, it this is certainly interesting.

But the research highlights the crucial need to support young adults’ mental health as a pathway to promoting lifelong physical activity. It also suggests that mental health interventions in early adulthood could have lasting benefits for lifelong health.”

“Is there an association between psychological distress during early adulthood and later trajectories of physical activity during adulthood? Longitudinal data from two cohort studies”

Authors: André Oliveira Werneck, Raphael Henrique de Oliveira Araujo, Danilo Rodrigues Silva, Brendon Stubbs.

Sami Mansfield: The role that physical activity and exercise play in reducing risk in cancer