With technological advancements, the amount of time individuals spend sitting has increased significantly over the past few decades. Emerging evidence supports that sitting time is distinctly different from physical inactivity and may have independent deleterious health effects. Sitting time, independent of physical activity, has been associated with total mortality, cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes, and obesity. It has also been associated with intermediate markers of disease risk such as abdominal weight gain, high cholesterol, insulin levels, high blood pressure, and other biomarkers in healthy adults. A recent report concluded that the average life expectancy in the USA would be increased by 2.00 years if sitting time were reduced to <3 hours per day.

More than 60 years of research supports the role of physical activity in prevention of various cancers including colorectal, postmenopausal breast, and endometrial cancers. More recently, many epidemiologic studies have examined the role of sitting time in relation to cancer risk, independent of or in combination with physical activity. This presentation will review the epidemiologic literature on the role of sitting time in relation to cancer risk.

Citation Format: Alpa V. Patel. The epidemiology of sitting time and cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research; 2013 Oct 27-30; National Harbor, MD. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Can Prev Res 2013;6(11 Suppl): Abstract nr PL04-01.

©2013 American Association for Cancer Research.
2013