Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity may protect against myeloid neoplasms

Performing moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) may confer beneficial effects on the risk of myeloid neoplasms, particularly myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), a study has found. On the other hand, there are no associations observed for sitting time.

Researchers looked at 109,030 cancer-free participants (mean age, 69.2 years) from the Cancer Prevention Study-II Nutrition Cohort, among whom 155 had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), 154 with MDS and 100 with other myeloid leukaemia. The mean age at diagnosis was 75 years, and all participants were followed for 10.0 years on average.

Overall, 39.5 percent of participants reported an insufficient amount of MVPA (<7.5 MET-hours/week), while 12 percent reported >6 hours of sitting per day. The most common type of MVPA was walking (90.5 percent), followed by biking (29.8 percent) and dancing (10.6 percent). Less active participants were more likely to be current smokers, had less education and had a higher average body mass index at baseline.

Compared with insufficient MVPA, meeting physical activity guidelines (7.5 to <15 MET-h/wk) was associated with reduced risk of myeloid neoplasms (hazard ratio [HR], 0.74, 95 percent CI, 0.56–0.98), as was doubling guidelines (15 to <22.5 MET-h/wk; HR, 0.75, 0.53–1.07). There was no significant association seen for higher MVPA (>22.5 MET-h/wk; HR, 0.93, 0.73–1.20).

Meeting/doubling guidelines also showed a protective association with the risk of MDS (HR, 0.57, 0.35–0.92 and HR, 0.51, 0.27–0.98, respectively), but there was no association for higher MVPA (HR, 0.93, 0.63–1.37).

MVPA was associated with neither myeloid leukaemia nor AML. Furthermore, sitting time was not associated with risk of any outcome.

Additional studies are needed to better understand the dose–response relationships between MVPA and risk of MDS, the researchers said.