A team of researchers at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY, set out to examine the link between a sedentary lifestyle and the risk of developing kidney or bladder cancer.
Researchers analyzed 160 people with renal (kidney) cancer, 208 bladder cancer patients, and 766 healthy
controls. Participants were asked to report on their levels of physical activity – whether they took part in any regular activity or not.
Those who said that they had never done so were classified as “physically inactive.” Researchers used
unconditional multivariable logistic regression methods to calculate the odds of developing renal and bladder cancer.
Inactivity increases kidney and bladder cancer risks by up to 77 percent
Specifically, they found that those who were physically inactive were 77 percent more likely to develop renal cancer and 73 percent more likely to develop cancer of the bladder.
A similar risk was found among people
with obesity and people with a normal body weight. This suggests that sedentary lifestyle is an independent factor that influences bladder and renal cancer risk.