- A recent two-part meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine concluded that cycling lowered the risk of heart disease and stroke, and also leads to a lower body mass index (BMI).
- Researchers noticed a benefit in people who rode for workouts or simply as a form of commuting.
Cycling to work gives you many bragging rights: You got your workout in, you reduced your carbon footprint, and now it’s pretty much confirmed that ride commuting to work makes you healthier than your car-commuting officemates.
According to a two-part meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine any kind of riding—whether you do it as a workout or simply to get to work—can give you a health boost.
In the first meta-analysis, researchers crunched the numbers from 21 studies on over one million participants and concluded that cyclists had a 22 percent lower risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) than noncyclists. (For both analyses, a noncyclist was defined as someone who does not cycle for either transportation or leisure.)
The second meta-analysis looked at 15 studies and included nearly 6,000 cyclists and over 39,000 noncyclists. This time, researchers focused on body mass index (BMI) of participants.
They found that overall, cyclists had an overall 0.45-lower BMI (around 3 to 4 pounds lower depending on height and weight) compared to noncyclists.
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It’s not exactly surprising that riding as a workout cuts your heart risk and helps keep your weight down, since exercise is a proven way to do both. As for commuting cycling? It’s a physical activity done twice daily, and with an higher intensity than walking. The high intensity and the regularity of the daily activity seem to be enough to lower risk, lead study author Solveig Nordengen, Ph.D.(c), of Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, told Bicycling.
Both reports found that cycling can boost your health, backing a slew of other research, which proves your daily ride can do everything from improve brain function to lower your risk of cancer to lower your stress levels.
What’s more, these analyses can be used to help guide the general population on improving their health, too, according to Nordengen. It’s been proven that hopping on a bike can improve both your physical and mental health.
“The most important finding is that we now can quantify [by] how much cycling can decrease mortality from CVD. The number of prevented diseases and deaths are substantial,” Nordengen said. “On a population basis, there is a huge potential to improve health.”
