Ditch the drive to work

New research published in medical journal Heart adds to the many other studies that prove cycling to work is good for you and driving there is bad.

Swapping your car for more physically active forms of travel may reduce your risk of heart disease, stroke and premature death, say the study’s lead authors Dr Jenna Panter and Dr Oliver Mytton. 

"Although not all of our findings reached statistical significance, there was an overall pattern," say the docs. 

"More active patterns of travel, compared with exclusive car use, were associated with reduced risk of heart disease, stroke and death."

The analysis used a cohort of over 350,000 adults, aged 37 to 73, from the UK Biobank study.

"Our research builds on what is already widely known about the health benefits of physical activity," say the study authors. 

"Some people may choose to use cars less when they understand the impacts on health."

They add: "While decisions about transport infrastructure may be made for a variety of non-health reasons, our study provides further evidence that health needs to be integrated into decisions that are made about transport."

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Full paper: Jenna Panter, Oliver Mytton, Stephen Sharp, Søren Brage, Steven Cummins, Anthony A Laverty, Katrien Wijndaele, David Ogilvie. Using alternatives to the car and risk of all-cause, cardiovascular and cancer mortality. Heart 21st May 2018.