Incidental

• It’s less appealing to cycle to work, walk after dinner, or wake up early to hit the gym.
• But we all know daily physical activity is essential for our health and wellbeing.
• However, many of us find it difficult to achieve the recommended 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity each week.

1. Nail those goals

• But just aiming to “get fit” is less likely to cut it than goals that are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.
• Specific goals are based on an observable behaviour or activity, such as step count, yoga, or competing in an event.
• Measurable goals can be tracked, so you can easily tell whether you have ticked them off.
• Achievable goals are realistic and based on your current fitness and abilities.

2. Keep track

• These devices can help you track your goals and activity, keep you accountable and increase your motivation.
• If you don’t have a fitness tracker, you can buy low-cost pedometers or track your activity times using paper and pen.

Read more:
Climb the stairs, lug the shopping, chase the kids. Incidental vigorous activity linked to lower cancer risks

3. Plan for success but prepare for barriers

• Take some time to think about the potential barriers that could prevent you from being active and plan solutions to overcome them.
• For example, if the cost of physical activity is too high for you, try to find options that are free, such as walking or running.
• A good strategy is to try to fit physical activity into your daily routine, such as walking or cycling to work.

4. Team up with a workout friend

• It can also help with accountability, as some people are more likely to show up when they have a workout partner.
• So, find a friend who supports your goal of being more active or maintaining your current activity levels.

5. Plan yourself a little treat

Make an appointment with yourself in your diary to exercise. Approach it as just as important as meeting a friend or colleague. One idea is to delay something you’d rather do and make it a reward for sticking to your activity appointment. If you really want to go out for coffee, do a hobby, or watch something, go for a walk first. Research shows incentives can dramatically increase physical activity levels.

6. Find a coach

• Trained professionals work one-on-one with people, sometimes via telehealth, to find out what’s reducing their motivation to make healthier choices, such as exercise.
• Then they employ behaviour change techniques to help them meet their health goals.
• Our recent research suggests health coaching can improve physical activity in older people and those with chronic pain.

• Cathie Sherrington receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF).
• Leanne Hassett received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF).

• The collaboration offers healthcare professionals enhanced capabilities for detecting incidental pulmonary embolism during routine CT scans.
• Incidental pulmonary embolism is a common finding in routine CT scans of the chest, with only 25% of incidental emboli reported during the initial interpretation.
• "We're delighted to add the CINA-iPE pulmonary embolism solution to our platform, further enhancing our existing trusted relationship with Avicenna.AI."
• "We are thrilled to empower the extensive community of Blackford users with our innovative incidental pulmonary embolism algorithm," said Cyril Di Grandi, Co-founder, and CEO of Avicenna.AI.

• But our fresh analysis shows what happens next can depend on how much money you have and where you live.
• Among middle-aged Australians cancer is the leading cause of death, accounting for 45% of all deaths among those aged 45 to 64 years.
• In an article just published in Health Economics, we examine the inequality in mortality (or death rates) across Australia.

Measuring death and status

• We used death registry data provided by the Australian Institute of Health and Wellbeing and Census data on SES.
• The new findings for middle-aged Australians stand out because inequality in mortality has been relatively stable over time and death rates are falling for most other age groups.
• Among young Australians aged 15–24 years we can see death rates falling and the SES gap in mortality shrinking due to greater declines in road deaths in poor areas.

Why the gap?

• Our research suggests different access to health care may have a role to play.
• This suggests the widening gap is because of smaller declines in deaths over time in our poorest regional and remote areas.
• Second, over the period from 2001 to 2018, the number of doctors per person is consistently greater in richer regions than poorer regions of Australia.
• However, access to new medications and treatments is often only available following consultations with primary physicians (such as GPs) or specialists.

More analysis needed

• But we need more comprehensive analysis of how various social determinants of health contribute to these inequalities.
• These could include social and environmental characteristics of local areas, health behaviours and cancer awareness, income or income inequality.
• Future research should examine whether the socioeconomic disparities in cancer death rates are also evident in cancer diagnoses.

• There is very little research on the potential of incidental physical activity for reducing the risk of cancer.
• Incidental activities can include doing errands on foot, work-related activity or housework as part of daily routines.
• In our study out today, we explored the health potential of brief bursts of vigorous physical activities embedded into daily life.

How was the study done?

• Our new study included 22,398 UK Biobank participants who had never been diagnosed with cancer before and did not do any structured exercise in their leisure time.
• Such trackers monitor activity levels continuously and with a high level of detail throughout the day, allowing us to calculate how hard and exactly for how long people in the study were moving.
• Our analyses took into account other factors that influence cancer risk, such as age, smoking, diet, and alcohol habits.

What we found out

• Some 92% of all bouts were done in very short bursts lasting up to one minute.
• A minimum of around 3.5 minutes each day was associated with a 17–18% reduction in total cancer risk compared with not doing any such activity.
• Half the participants did at least 4.5 minutes a day, associated with a 20–21% reduction in total cancer risk.

Our study had its limits

• The study is observational, meaning we looked at a group of people and their outcomes retrospectively and did not test new interventions.
• Our study can’t explain the biological mechanisms of how vigorous intensity activity may reduce cancer risk.
• In another recent study of ours, we found benefits from daily vigorous intermittent lifestyle activity on the risk of death overall and death from cancer or cardiovascular causes.

In a nutshell: get moving in your daily routine

• This is a very small amount of activity compared to current recommendations of 150–300 minutes of moderate intensity or 75–150 minutes of vigorous intensity activity a week.
• Vigorous incidental physical activity is a promising avenue for cancer prevention among people unable or unmotivated to exercise in their leisure time.