A prospective study of physical activity and the risk of pancreatic cancer among women (United States)

Several epidemiologic studies have examined the association between physical activity and pancreatic cancer risk; however, the results of these studies are not consistent.

This study examined the associations of total, moderate, and vigorous physical activity to pancreatic cancer in a cohort of 33,530 U.S. women enrolled in the Breast Cancer Detection Demonstration Project (BCDDP). At baseline (1987–1989), information on physical activity over the past year was obtained using a self-administered questionnaire. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to estimate relative risks (RR) and 95% confidence intervals of pancreatic cancer risk.

70 incident cases of pancreatic cancer were ascertained during 284,639 person years of follow-up between 1987–1989 and 1995–1998. After adjustment for age, body mass index, smoking status, history of diabetes, and height, increased physical activity was related to a suggestively decreased risk of pancreatic cancer. The RRs for increasing quartiles of total physical activity were 1.0, 0.80, 0.66, 0.52 (95% CI = 0.26, 1.05; p_trend = 0.05). This association was consistent across subgroups defined by body mass index and smoking status. We also observed statistically non-significant reductions in pancreatic cancer risk for women in the highest quartile of moderate (RR = 0.57; 95% CI = 0.26, 1.26) and highest quartile of vigorous physical activity (RR = 0.63; 95% CI = 0.31, 1.28) compared to their least active counterparts.

Our study provides evidence for a role of physical activity in protecting against pancreatic cancer.