HOW CYCLING & WALKING TO WORK AFFECTS HEALTH

-> Yes! Magazine reports on the largest ever study into how cycling and walking to work affects your health. (Association Between Active Commuting and Incident Cardiovascular Disease, Cancer, and Mortality: Prospective Cohort Study: http://bit.ly/2p7tDRv) Published in the British Medical Journal, the results for cycling in particular have important implications. They suggest that councils and governments need to make it a top priority to encourage as many commuters to get on their bikes as possible. Researchers looked at 263,450 people with an average age of 53 who were either in paid employment or self-employed, and didn’t always work at home. Participants were asked whether they usually traveled to work by car, public transport, walking, cycling or a combination. They followed participants for about 5 years. They found that cycling to work was associated with a 41 percent lower risk of dying overall compared to commuting by car or public transport. Cycle commuters had a 52 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease and a 40 percent lower risk of dying from cancer. They also had 46 percent lower risk of developing heart disease and a 45 percent lower risk of developing cancer at all. Walking to work was not associated with a lower risk of dying from all causes. Walkers did, however, have a 27 percent lower risk of heart disease and a 36 percent lower risk of dying from it. http://bit.ly/2qENWFV

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.