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Walking time, sports activity, job type, and body posture during work in relation to incident colorectal cancer: the JACC prospective cohort study

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Abstract

Purpose

An inverse association between physical activity and colorectal cancer (CRC) has been suggested. We aimed to assess the specific and combined effects of leisure-time and occupational physical activities on CRC risk among Japanese adults.

Methods

Using Cox proportional hazard models, we tested whether walking time, sports activity, body posture during work, and job type—or the combination of these variables—were associated with CRC incidence in a prospective cohort of 26,897 Japanese adults aged 40–79 years.

Results

During a median 17-year follow-up (1990–2009) period, we ascertained 423 incident cases of CRC (267 colon and 156 rectum cancer). Time spent walking suggested a dose–response inverse relationship with CRC risk (p-trend = 0.051). Manual labor was associated with lower CRC risk when compared to office work with HRs (95% CIs) of 0.74 (0.56–0.97) for CRC and 0.68 (0.48–0.96) for colon cancer. Compared to sitting, moving during work tended to be inversely associated with rectal cancer risk, especially after censoring early incident cases within 3 years after baseline; HR (95% CI) = 0.63 (0.40–0.99). Combining walking and job type suggested mutual and synergistic benefits on the risk of colon cancer (p-interaction = 0.03). Compared to office workers walking < 1 h/day, the HR (95% CI) of colon cancer was 0.48 (0.23–0.98), 0.61 (0.42–0.89), and 0.59 (0.41–0.87) in office workers walking ≥ 1 h/day, non-office workers walking < 1 h/day, and non-office workers walking ≥ 1 h/day, respectively.

Conclusion

The time spent walking, job type, and posture during work were independently associated with the reduced incident CRC risk among Japanese men and women.

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Data availability

Upon reasonable request of the study’s steering committee.

Code availability

Not applicable.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank all staff members involved in this study for their valuable help in conducting the baseline survey and follow-up. Also, we would like to thank our colleague Dr. Krisztina Gero of Harvard School of Public Health for her help editing the language of this research. We also thank our colleagues from Osaka University Center of Medical Data Science, Advanced Clinical Epidemiology Investigator’s Research Project, for providing their insight and expertise for our research.

Funding

This work was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (MEXT) (Monbusho); Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas of Cancer; and Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas of Cancer Epidemiology from MEXT (MonbuKagaku-sho) (Nos. 61010076, 62010074, 63010074, 1010068, 2151065, 3151064, 4151063, 5151069, 6279102, 11181101, 17015022, 18014011, 20014026, 20390156, 26293138, and 16H06277). This research was also supported by a grant-in-aid from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Health and Labor Sciences research grants, Japan (Research on Health Services: H17-Kenkou-007; Comprehensive Research on Cardiovascular Disease and Life-Related Disease: H18-Junkankitou[Seishuu]-Ippan-012; Comprehensive Research on Cardiovascular Disease and Life-Related Disease: H19-Junkankitou [Seishuu]-Ippan-012; Comprehensive Research on Cardiovascular and Lifestyle-Related Diseases: H20-Junkankitou [Seishuu]-Ippan-013; Comprehensive Research on Cardiovascular and Lifestyle-Related Diseases: H23-Junkankitou [Seishuu]-Ippan-005); an Intramural Research Fund (22-4-5) for Cardiovascular Diseases of National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center; Comprehensive Research on Cardiovascular and Lifestyle-Related Diseases (H26-Junkankitou [Seisaku]-Ippan-001) and H29-Junkankitou [Seishuu]-Ippan-003) and 20FA1002.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Minia University, Main Road, Shalaby land, Minia, 61519, Egypt

    Ehab S. Eshak

  2. Public Health, Department of Social Medicine, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871, Japan

    Ehab S. Eshak, Hiroyuki Noda & Hiroyasu Iso

  3. Department of Public Health, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, 7-15 Kita-Ku, Sapporo, 060-8638, Japan

    Akiko Tamakoshi

  4. Department of Public Health Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, 305-8575, Japan

    Hiroyasu Iso

Authors
  1. Ehab S. Eshak
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  2. Hiroyuki Noda
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  3. Akiko Tamakoshi
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  4. Hiroyasu Iso
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Contributions

ESE designed the research, analyzed the data, and drafted the manuscript; NH reviewed the manuscript; TA and IH designed the research and reviewed the manuscript. All authors have read the journal’s authorship agreement.

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Correspondence to Ehab S. Eshak.

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The ethical review boards of Osaka University and Hokkaido University have approved this research.

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Eshak, E.S., Noda, H., Tamakoshi, A. et al. Walking time, sports activity, job type, and body posture during work in relation to incident colorectal cancer: the JACC prospective cohort study. Cancer Causes Control 33, 473–481 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-021-01542-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-021-01542-x

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