Moving around by bike or on foot, in addition to not polluting, is good for your health. The evidence at this point is overwhelming. However, it is not so common to measure the health effects of certain mobility behaviours in many people and over a long period of time to assess what the specific benefits are. This is what a group of researchers from the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh have done with the journeys to work or school of more than 82,000 people aged between 16 and 74 years for almost two decades (from 2001 to 2018).
The scientists wanted to answer the following question: how does the risk of suffering from various physical and mental health problems differ for pedestrians and cyclists, compared to those who choose to drive or use public transport? The findings have just been published in the magazine BMJ Public Health. “There are clearly and consistently lower risks of adverse outcomes among active commuters” – 12,924 people in the sample – compared to non-active commuters – 69,373 people – that is, those who choose to drive or take public transport to get to the office, the study says. There is an important precedent to this study, a large study in the United Kingdom that followed 300,000 people for 25 years, which yielded results along the same lines, as published in The Lancet Planetary Health in 2020.
The greatest health benefits were found in this case among those who cycled (1,363): they had a 47% lower risk of death from any cause and a 10% lower risk of hospitalisation. There was also a decrease in cancer diagnoses (24%) and deaths from this disease (50%), admissions for cerebrovascular diseases (24%) and the chances of ending up taking medication for an ailment of this type (30%).
The study itself admits one limitation: it does not measure whether people who choose to cycle to work also do physical exercise on the side. “This may have led to an overestimation of the effects, especially in the case of cyclists who commute to work and who have been shown to have higher levels of physical activity in general,” the researchers point out. The question to the sample about the mode of transport, moreover, was only asked once in 2001 and may have changed in subsequent years without it being recorded.
Manuel Franco, epidemiologist and professor at the University of Alcalá de Henares agrees, in statements to SMC Spainpointing out that cyclists “tend to be sporty people”, but also “highly educated and who probably take better care of their health than people who use other means of transport”.
Better mental health
As a novelty, the study also includes mental health. The risk of taking medication for anxiety and depression disorders is reduced by 20% if you cycle to work. In the case of those who walk to the office, the risk of hospitalization is 9% lower and deaths from cancer are reduced by 7%. In addition, there is a 10% lower probability of needing drugs to control cerebrovascular diseases.
“This study is of great importance because it highlights the importance of active modes of transport for people’s health. Developing policies that favour these forms of safe travel in daily routine, compared to others such as the private car, is a public health priority that must be addressed urgently,” Luis Cereijo Tejedor, assistant professor of Physical Education and Sports, also told SMC Centre.
Not everything is always positive. However, monitoring reveals that those who choose to cycle are twice as likely as travellers who travel by car or public transport to be hospitalised due to a traffic accident (83 victims in 18 years, 6% of the total). “With the studies that exist, it can be confirmed that the health benefits are much greater than the risk of injury,” notes the research, which also calls, in light of the data, for “safer infrastructures” and warns that teleworking can play against the promotion of active travel because it is no longer needed (or less frequently). Those who take the bike are still much more likely to be young men; while those who choose to walk are more likely to be women. Mostly city dwellers.
According to the Bicycle Barometer (2022), 57.1% of people living in Spain between 14 and 70 years old – around 20 million – “use the bicycle with some frequency”, four points more than in 2019, although only 7.7% ride it every day. Among those who are users, 36% say they use it to go to work. Spain lags behind many European countries in this regard. The Netherlands subsidizes the kilometer at 21 cents and in France the amount paid by the State for choosing the bike can reach up to 800 euros per year, El País picked up.
Source: www.eldiario.es
