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Fitness & Exercise for Senior Citizens
Men Who Are Active at Work May Have a Decreased Risk
of Prostate Cancer
Continuous physical activity, not intermittent
activity, is required to lower risk
Feb. 12, 2008 - Men with jobs that require them to
be physically active may be getting benefits beyond salary and health
insurance - they may be at a decreased risk of developing prostate
cancer, according to a study at UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center. There are
many senior citizens who are retired, which may give them an even better
opportunity for daily physical activity.
"The message from this study for today is that if
you're more active, you may be able to prevent this cancer from
happening," said Beate Ritz, a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher, an
associate professor of epidemiology in the UCLA School of Public Health
and the study's senior author.
"If you have a desk job, do something physically
active to counterbalance it."
The findings of this study are supported by other
studies that suggest continuous physical activity, but not intermittent
activity, is required to lower the risk of prostate cancer. The biologic
mechanisms by which physical activity lower prostate cancer risk have
not been identified, although some experts have speculated that activity
can alter hormone levels in some men.
These researchers studied more than 2,100 men who
worked at the Rocketdyne facility in the San Fernando Valley, many of
whom were exposed to radiation and chemicals that may have increased
their risk for certain cancers. The research team identified 362 men who
developed prostate cancer and compared them to 1,805 men of similar age
and socioeconomic status who did not get prostate cancer.
The case-control study nested within a larger
cohort of more than 10,000 subjects focused on men who worked at the
nuclear and rocket engine testing facility from the 1950s to the early
1990s. The cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed between January 1988
and December 1999. Researchers obtained cancer incidence data for the
workers from the California Cancer Registry and seven other cancer
registries in neighboring states where workers may have moved after
retirement.
Data from Rocketdyne company records was used to
construct a job exposure matrix that ranked job descriptions by the
amount of physical activity required and any harmful exposures the
workers might have experienced.
Physical activity was separated into jobs with low,
moderate and high amounts of exertion. Men with low physical activity
jobs were typically managers, supervisors, analysts, administrators and
senior engineers.
Those with moderately physically active jobs
included senior mechanics and technicians, inspectors and engineers.
Masons and bricklayers, metal fitters, welders, packers, painters, tool
and die makers, truck drivers, lift operators and janitors were
considered to have highly physically active jobs.
>> The study found that the men who developed
prostate cancer were less likely to hold the more physically active
jobs.
>> Those that got cancer also were more likely than
the control group to be highly exposed to the chemicals that were
evaluated, including hydrazine, benzene, mineral oil, polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and trichloroethylene (TCE), which are
known or suspected carcinogens.
A strength of the UCLA study was that researchers
used personnel records, job description manuals, industrial hygiene
review and retired worker interviews to develop their job exposure
matrix, avoiding problems with study subject recall and interviewer
bias. Researchers also were able to obtain cancer incidence data and did
not have to rely on mortality data.
Prostate cancer is largely non-fatal, so mortality
rates would not have been good data to analyze, Ritz said.
The study was limited in that researchers were not
able to account for other potential factors that might affect prostate
cancer risk, such as recreational physical activity and diet, said
Anusha Krishnadasan, an epidemiologist at Olive View-UCLA Education and
Research Institute and first author of the study.
"All we can say for sure is that aerospace workers
that were highly active on a regular basis for many years while working
at Rocketdyne were at a decreased risk of prostate cancer," she said.
In a subset of subjects, researchers found that the
men who developed prostate cancer were more likely to have a family
history of the disease, to be African American and report having
participated in routine screening for prostate cancer.
The study, done in conjunction with researchers at
the Olive View-UCLA Education and Research Institute and the University
of Michigan, appears in the February issue of the journal Cancer Causes
Control.
UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center
comprises about 235 researchers and clinicians engaged in disease
research, prevention, detection, control, treatment and education. One
of the nation's largest comprehensive cancer centers, the Jonsson center
is dedicated to promoting research and translating basic science into
leading-edge clinical studies. In July 2007, the Jonsson Cancer Center
was named the best cancer center in California by U.S. News & World
Report, a ranking it has held for eight consecutive years.
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Jan. 29, 2008 - Individuals who are physically
active during their leisure time appear to be biologically younger than
those with sedentary lifestyles, according to a report in the January 28
issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives
journals.
