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Physical activity and lung cancer risk in men and women

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Abstract

Purpose

Although evidence has accumulated that recreational physical activities (PA) may reduce lung cancer risk, there is little evidence concerning the possible role of a potentially more important source of PA, namely occupational PA. We investigated both recreational and lifetime occupational PA in relation to lung cancer risk in a population-based case–control study in Montreal, Canada (NCASES = 727; NCONTROLS = 1,351).

Methods

Unconditional logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (OR), separately for men and women, adjusting for smoking, exposure to occupational carcinogens, and sociodemographic and lifestyle factors.

Results

In both sexes, increasing recreational PA was associated with a lower lung cancer risk (ORMEN = 0.66, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.47–0.92; ORWOMEN = 0.55, 95% CI 0.34–0.88, comparing the highest versus lowest tertiles). For occupational PA, no association was observed among women, while increasing occupational PA was associated with increased risk among men (ORMEN = 1.96, 95% CI 1.27–3.01). ORs were not modified by occupational lung carcinogen exposure, body mass index, and smoking level; results were similar across lung cancer histological types.

Conclusions

Our results support the previous findings for recreational PA and lung cancer risk. Unexpectedly, our findings suggest a positive association for occupational PA; this requires replication and more detailed investigation.

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Abbreviations

PA:

Physical activity

OR:

Odds ratio

CI:

Confidence interval

MET:

Metabolic equivalent of tasks

CSI:

Comprehensive smoking index

SD:

Standard deviation

DAG:

Directed acyclic graphs

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute (Grant #19912). Dr. Ho received a postdoctoral fellowship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Lung Cancer Canada to conduct this work and is currently supported by the Cancer Research Society, Fonds de recherche du Québec–Santé (FRQS) and Ministère de l’Économie, de la Science et de l’Innovation du Québec (MESI). Dr. Parent received Career Investigator Awards from the FRQS. Dr. Abrahamowicz is a James McGill Professor. Dr. Siemiatycki holds the Guzzo Chair in Environment and Cancer. Dr. Koushik was supported by a New Investigator award of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

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All authors contributed to this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social and Preventive Medicine and CRCHUM (Centre de recherche du CHUM), Université de Montréal, 850 Saint-Denis Street, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Vikki Ho, Lise Gauvin, Jack Siemiatycki & Anita Koushik

  2. INRS (Institut Armand-Frappier Research Center), Laval, QC, Canada

    Marie-Elise Parent & Robert Bourbonnais

  3. CRCHUM (Centre de recherche du CHUM), Montréal, QC, Canada

    Marie-Elise Parent, Javier Pintos & Lesley Richardson

  4. Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Michal Abrahamowicz & Coraline Danieli

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  1. Vikki Ho
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Correspondence to Anita Koushik.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Ho, V., Parent, ME., Pintos, J. et al. Physical activity and lung cancer risk in men and women. Cancer Causes Control 28, 309–318 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-017-0872-4

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