Fit men are 40 per cent less likely to get cancer

Swedish researchers have found that males with good fitness levels had less chance of suffering cancers of the head, neck, throat, stomach, lung, liver, kidney, and bowel.

The study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, followed more than a million men over the course of 30 years and noticed the men with higher fitness levels had a 42 per cent lower risk of lung cancer - closely followed by liver cancer and cancer of the food pipe.

Dr Aron Onerup, of the University of Gothenburg, said: "Higher fitness in healthy young men is associated with a lower hazard of developing nine site-specific cancers. These results could be used in policy-making."

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