How to Lower Cancer Risk: Do Housework?

Is it possible to prevent cancer if you do enough housework? If you belong to Netscape, you may have run across this online report during the summer of 2009. The report that housework might be a cancer preventive came from the results of a 10-year study by Japanese researchers, led by Dr. Manami Inoue from Japan's National Cancer Center in Tokyo.

Cancer incidence rates were analyzed among 79,771 men and women, between ages 45 and 74 at the start of the study. Between 1995 and 1999 they were questioned about their lifestyle habits, diet and physical activity, and followed through to 2004; by then, over 4,300 cases of cancer were diagnosed.

People who had the lowest risk of cancer development had the highest level of physical activity. For men, the most active had a 13 percent less risk of cancer than the least active; for women, it was 16 percent. The cancers in question included colon, liver, pancreatic and stomach.

The term "physical activity" is ambiguous and open to interpretation - or misinterpretation. The best way to interpret the meaning is to just assume that "physical activity" means structured exercise sessions that tax the cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems. These exercise sessions have rhyme and reason, ideally involve neutral spinal alignment, and include periods of stretching.

Unless a person exists in a comatose state, he or she engages in physical activity every day. Trips to the refrigerator on commercial breaks from the ballgame on TV are physical activity. So is searching for the remote and shifting positions in a recliner chair.

Thus, "physical activity" should be redefined as methodical cardio and weight workouts. This means that housework doesn't qualify, as many people have been led to believe. People who perform housework-like duties for a living do not have a longer lifespan, or lower incidence of cancer, heart disease, stroke or diabetes, than do people with desk jobs.

Cardio and strength training can easily be accomplished in a stress-free environment, whereas housework is often performed in a stressful environment, accompanied by many stressful thought patterns: "How many times do I have to tell you kids to clean up after yourselves! Now I'm stuck doing all your work!" Chronic stress saps the immune system and can cause headaches, digestive disturbances and increase risk of blood clots.

There just is no substitute for the controlled, methodical nature of traditional cardio and strength training routines, which improve bone density, build stronger backs and shoulders, increase heart-pumping efficacy, increase capillary density and significantly boost immune function -- all of which translate to cutting disease risk including cancer. So if you've ever believed that housework can help prevent cancer, your dream is over.