Table 3.

Disease prevention effects of regular physical activity.

Health Condition	Risk Reduction1 or Health Improvement	Recommendations for Physical Activity2	Dose-Response Relationship	Differences between Sex, Age, Ethnicity etc.
All-cause mortality	30% (44% elderly)	General recommendations	Yes	No
Cardiovascular disease	20%–35%	General recommendations	Yes	Insufficient evidence
Metabolic syndrome	30%–40%	General recommendations	Yes	No
Type-2 diabetes	25%–42%	General recommendations, data primarily on aerobic PA	Yes	Insufficient evidence
Cancer	Brain cancer: Limited evidence2; Breast cancer: 20%; Bladder cancer: 13%–15%; Colon cancer: 30%; Endometrial cancer: 17%–35%; Esophageal cancer3: 6%–21%; Gastric cancer: 19%; Head & neck cancers: 15%–22%, limited evidence; Hematological cancers: No-low effect, limited evidence3; Lung cancer: 13%–26%; Ovarian cancer: Limited/conflicting evidence; Pancreatic & prostate cancer: Limited evidence; Renal cancer: 11%–23%; Rectal cancer: No risk reduction, limited evidence; Thyroid cancer: No risk reduction	General recommendations, data primarily on aerobic PA	Renal & thyroid cancer: No. Lung, hematological, head and neck cancers: Limited evidence. Other; Yes.	Breast cancer: Weaker evidence for Hispanic and Black women. Gastric cancer: Weaker evidence for women Renal cancer: Weaker evidence for Asians Lung cancer: Greater effect for women Other: Limited evidence/No known difference
Overweight and obesity (weight loss)	PA alone, without diet intervention only has an effect at large volume	General recommendations, combined with diet interventions	Yes	No
Overweight and obesity (weight maintenance)	PA supports weight maintenance	General recommendations, stronger evidence for aerobic PA	Limited evidence	Insufficient evidence
Skeletal health	36%–68% for hip fracture 1%–2% increased bone density	General recommendations including muscle- strengthening physical activity	Yes	Hip fracture: Largest effect in elderly women Bone density: Largest effect in women
Muscle mass	Magnitude is highly variable and mode-dependent	Weight bearing activity	Yes	Decreased effect with age
Functional strength/capacity (middle age and older)	30% increased chance to counteract or postpone a decrease in functional strength/capacity 30% lower risk of falls	General recommendations including muscle- and skeletal-strengthening physical activity	Functional health: Yes Falls: No/unclear	Increased functional capacity mostly seen in older adults ages 65 or more.
Depression	20%–30% lower	General recommendations	Yes	No
Sleep	Improved quality, sleep onset latency and total sleep time	General recommendations	No	No
Distress	20%–30% lower	General recommendations	No	No
Dementia	20%–30% lower	General recommendations	No	No
Cognition	Improved for preadolescent children and adults aged 50 years or older	General recommendations	Conflicting findings	Insufficient evidence for adolescents and adults. Ethnicity: No.

Compiled from US Department of Health and Human Service, https://health.gov/paguidelines/report/ [62,146] ¹: Risk reduction refers to the relative risk in physically active samples in comparison to a non-active sample, i.e., a risk reduction of 20% means that the physically active sample has a relative risk of 0.8, compared to the non-active sample, which has 1.0. ²: In general, general recommendations for PA that are described and referred to herein apply to most conditions. However, in some cases, more specific recommendations exist, more in depth described by the US Department of Health and Human Service, amongst others [62]. ³: Evidence is dependent on cancer subtype; refer to US Department of Health and Human Service [62] for in-depth guidance. PA = Physical.