The association between non-occupational TV and computer screen-time viewing and cancer risk: Findings from the UK Biobank, a large prospective cohort study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Evidence is suggestive of sedentary behaviour being associated with an increased risk of endometrial cancer, but the evidence base is too limited to draw any conclusions for other cancers. The aim of the study was to investigate the association between sedentary behaviour and total cancer incidence and site-specific cancer incidence.Methods This prospective population-based cohort study involved data from the UK Biobank (470 578 adults; 53.8% females; mean age 56.3 years). Sedentary behaviours including television viewing time, computer use time and daily total screen time were the exposure variables. Primary and secondary outcome measures included incident total cancer, and site-specific cancers identified from the International Classification of Diseases, 9th and 10th revisions (ICD-9 and ICD-10). Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) showing the relationship between sedentary behaviour and cancer using continuous (hours/day) and categorical exposure variables. Partition models and isotemporal substitution models were used to investigate the impact of substituting sedentary behaviour with physical activity.Results During a mean follow-up time of 7.6 years, 28 992 incident cancers were identified. A 1-hour increase in daily TV screen time was associated with higher risk of oropharyngeal cancer (HR 1.06, 95% CI: 1.02, 1.11), stomach cancer (HR 1.06, 95% CI: 1.001, 1.13), oesophagus and stomach cancer (HR 1.04, 95% CI: 1.005, 1.09), and colon cancer (HR 1.04, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.06) in fully adjusted models. Participants who reported ≤1 hour/day of TV screen time had a lower risk of lung cancer (HR 0.85, 95% CI: 0.73, 0.997), breast (female only) cancer (HR 0.92, 95% CI: 0.85, 0.996), stomach cancer (HR 0.66, 95% CI: 0.45, 0.97), and oesophagus and stomach cancer (HR 0.78, 95% CI: 0.62, 0.98) compared to participants who reported 1-≤3 hours/day of TV screen time. Isotemporal substitution models showed reduced risk of total cancer (HR 0.97, 95% CI: 0.95, 0.99) and some site-specific cancers when replacing 1-hour/day of TV viewing with moderate-intensity physical activity or walking.Conclusions Our findings show that sedentary behaviours were associated with some site-specific cancers (including oropharyngeal, oesophagus and stomach, colon and lung cancer), particularly for TV viewing time. Our findings were less consistent for time spent on computer and daily total screen time. Substitution models showed that replacing 1-hour per day of TV viewing with 1-hour of moderate-intensity physical activity or walking was associated with lower risk of total cancer and lower risk of several site-specific cancers. Health promotion strategies should endorse the message to minimise sedentary behaviour, replacing it with health-enhancing physical activity, and to particularly target TV viewing.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".