As per the study published in the journal Cancer, fit adults have the lowest risk of developing lung and colorectal cancer.
Also, people with high fitness levels and yet diagnosed with cancer are less likely to die compared with those who had low fitness levels.
The study was conducted owing to the fact that there was limited data on the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness and lung and colorectal cancer risk and mortality.
To find this out, investigate, researcher Dr Catherine Handy Marshall and her colleagues studied 49,143 adults. People were asked to undergo exercise stress testing from 1991-2009. This followed a median of 7.7 years.
The study is known to be the largest of its kind, as well as the first of its kind, which saw the involvement of women and a large percentage of non-white individuals.
People with good and high fitness levels had a 77 per cent decreased the risk of developing lung cancer and 61 per cent had decreased risk of developing colorectal cancer.
Of the individuals who developed lung cancer, those with the highest fitness had 44 per cent decreased the risk of dying.
Dr Marshall quoted for a reputed media house saying that “Our findings are one of the first, largest, and most diverse cohorts to look at the impact of fitness on cancer outcomes.