Biobank Research on Health Benefits of Cycle Commuting

[David Cox]

This story got a lot of coverage this morning which I am pleased about because I was rounded up for the first BioBank data sample. A bunch of over 60's given a battery of tests on a whole floor of one of Birmingham's many office blocks - some obviously available for short term rent!
They found I had adult onset asthma - I reckon this was the product of 40 years cycle commuting in Brum so got a TUE and inhaler for club runs!

As Dr Hutch pointed out in recent Cycling Weekly the more cycling you do the longer you live but there's not a lot of point in that if you don't enjoy the cycling - don't understand people who boast about pain and "suffer" scores from their rides!!

PRESS RELEASE
Thursday 20 April
Cycling to work may cut your risk of premature death by 40%

Using your bike to get to work could cut your risk of developing cancer and heart disease by almost half.

New research by the University of Glasgow and published today in the BMJ, has found that cycling to work is associated with a 45% lower risk of developing cancer and a 46% lower risk of heart disease, compared to a non-active commute.

Overall the study found that commuters who cycled were associated with a 41% lower risk of premature death.

Walking to work was associated with 27% lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease and a 36% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, but not cancer or premature death overall.

This study analysed data from 264,337 participants from UK Biobank who were asked questions about their usual mode of commuting to work and then followed up for 5 years. The new cases of cancer, heart attacks and deaths in that 5-year period were assessed and related to their mode of commuting.

The researchers believe that their findings suggest that policies designed to make it easier for people to commute by bike may present major opportunities for public health improvement.

Dr Jason Gill, from the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, said: "Cycling all or part of the way to work was associated with substantially lower risk of adverse health outcomes. Those who cycled the full length of their commute had an over 40% lower risk of heart disease, cancer and overall mortality over the 5 years of follow-up.

"If these associations are causal, these findings suggest that policies designed to make it easier for people to commute by bike, such as cycle lanes, city bike hire, subsidised cycle purchase schemes and increasing provision for cycles on public transport may present major opportunities for public health improvement."

The greater benefits seen with cycling compared with walking may be because cycle commuters covered longer distances in their commutes than the walkers, the intensity of cycling is higher than walking and the cycle commuters had higher levels of fitness
Dr Carlos Celis-Morales, said: "Walking to work was associated with lower risk of heart disease, but unlike cycling was not associated with a significantly lower risk of cancer or overall death. This may be because walkers commuted shorter distances than cyclists typically 6 miles per week, compared with 30 miles per week and walking is generally a lower intensity of exercise than cycling."
The paper, 'Association between active commuting (walking and cycling) and incident cardiovascular disease, cancer and mortality: Prospective cohort study of 264,337 UK Biobank participants' is published today in the BMJ.

ENDS

[geomannie]

While I don't for one minute doubt that cyling and other exercise are good for health, I do have concerns with studies like these proving direct linkage between cycling activity and health.

While the authors have shown a clear correlation between cycling and health, the issue of 'correlation-does-not-mean-causation' always rears its head. In fact the study acknowledges this uncertainty and contains the line "As is the case for any observational study, residual confounding is always possible and associations may not imply causation."

For example, does cycling keep you healthy, or do healthier/fitter people cycle?

Without doing a proper trial whereby you took a large group of non-cyclists and for example, gave half of them a bike, forbade the other half from cycling, and assessed them after 25 years, you can't really tell.

[LollyKat]

True, but it seems to be generally accepted by the medical profession (i.e. I'm not going hunting for the scientific papers) that increasing the activity of couch potatoes helps with weight loss and high blood pressure.