# Usual walking Pace and risk of 28 cancers– results from the UK biobank

## TL;DR

A study found that brisk walking is linked to lower risks of five cancers, suggesting it could be a simple way to reduce cancer risk.

## Contribution

This study is the first to show that brisk walking, independent of overall activity, is associated with reduced cancer risk for specific cancer types.

## Key findings

- Brisk walking was associated with lower risks of five cancers, including anal, liver, small intestine, thyroid, and lung cancer.
- The findings remained consistent across sensitivity analyses for sex, age, and confounding factors.
- The association was observed even after accounting for overall physical activity and walking volume.

## Abstract

Usual walking pace represents a practical indicator of overall health. However, its association with cancer development remains unexplored. We investigated the relation between self-reported walking pace and cancer risk.

Using baseline UK Biobank data from 2006 to 2010, excluding the first two years of follow-up to reduce reverse causation, we employed multivariable Cox regression to assess the association between walking pace (slow, steady average, brisk) and risk of 28 cancer types, accounting for overall physical activity and walking volume.

After a median follow-up of 10.9 years (interquartile range 10.1–11.8), 8.3% of 334,924 participants received a cancer diagnosis. Brisk compared to slow walking pace was associated with multivariable-adjusted lower risks of five cancers, including anal (hazard ratio 0.30; 95% confidence interval: 0.14–0.63), hepatocellular carcinoma (0.39; 0.23–0.66), small intestine (0.46; 0.24–0.87), thyroid (0.50; 0.29–0.86), and lung cancer (0.60; 0.51–0.70). Our findings were consistent across various sensitivity analyses, which assessed sex and age differences, residual confounding, and reverse causation.

Self-reported walking pace was inversely associated with risk of five cancer types, even when accounting for overall physical activity and walking volume. Adopting a brisk walking pace may represent a pragmatic target for public health interventions to decrease cancer risk, particularly in circumstances where increases in walking volume or frequency prove impractical.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12885-025-14258-x.