Study Finds Biking to Work HALVES Risk of Early Death
 

This video refers to a study done several years ago, and I read about it a few years ago. Even a short commute that is not very vigorous has measurable benefits especially if you do it consistently over years.

I have no idea why this likes to show footage of him riding on stairs and other stunts in this context. I never learned stunts, and I'm not about to start learning now.

It certainly is a quirky, unique presentation.

I’ll be sure to tell my cardiomyopathy about this study :-p

Got a short little span of attention (call me Al) so I made it through about 90 seconds of the video.

Did he address the notion that correlation is not causation?

No, but the argument is convincing enough for me, and he presented it well. If you push yourself to watch the video, let us know what you think. Or you could dig up the study. I read about it a while back.

This is a high quality study that does take into accounts covariates like age, sex, pre-existing health condition, socioeconomic factors etc, etc.
One surprising finding is that cycling to work prevents cancer (51% reduction) more strongly than cardiovascular diseases (37% reduction). You would think it's the other way around.
https://bmjpublichealth.bmj.com/cont...5/F1.large.jpg

The only downside is that we are hospitalized for traffic accidents at 1.98X the rate of non-cyclists. So be careful out there!

Those are some dadgum big error bars, to the point that it's hard to conclude, with confidence, that there's any difference between cyclists and non-cyclists on most of the things the study purports to measure.

It is helpful for determining how seriously to listen to this advocate for healthy commuting. He might as well have dressed up in a clown's outfit.

Look at the cancer mortality. The 3 sigma bar is completely off to the left of the control line. In other words, everyone who cycles to work, will benefit from reduced cancer rates, with no exception. Even in the worst case scenerio, you would still derive a 20% reduction of cancer risk. It cannot get clearer than this. If this was a drug it would be a blockbuster drug.

can someone post the link to the actual articles?

Good video, as usual. He asks the tough questions and really tests things out properly. Makes a nice living from these videos, as far as I can tell.

As for the stunts, he's primarily a mountain biker; the kind doing jumps and such. I think that, combined with having grown up a hooligan kid on a bike explains it. Spice things up a bit, in other words.

He says something to close all his videos that I think makes a good point; something like: "I hope you found this video informative, and if not, then at least entertaining..." He strives to entertain and inform. More viewers that way, maybe?

He has done a series of videos where he visits different cities to rate them for bike-ability, and part of his format is to do something sketchy in each city. Some jump here and there.

You may see less of it going forward, as he's getting older and it hurts more and longer when he crashes doing sketchy stuff.

I agree, he does a good job and is informative in most of his videos. I continue to follow him. I posted because I consider this one to be a good video. I was just picking a nit about his style.

Here are two more videos I really enjoyed re. the benefits of bike commuting:

From Shifter, a nice Canadian bike commuter guy from Vancouver: All of his content is good.

TedX talk: The Amazing Way Bicycles Change You. I found this one REALLY inspiring!

What if biking to work increased my chances of dying by 2x cuz I get by a car?

The guy who does Shifter is in Calgary though he occasionally reports from Vancouver. I also follow him, and he is informative, though I know most of the stuff he offers.

Statistics don't work that way. One incident doesn't change statistics. There is a chance you'll get hit by a car. There's a chance that cycling will prolong your life. Which will happen is unknowable. You can use statistics to make your decisions, but you don't have to. While the risk of getting hit is real, the risk of a shorter life because you don't cycle is higher. That is no comfort to those who die or are seriously injured.

I was seriously hit -- HEAD ON! -- by a car while I was bike-commuting. After I recovered, I decided to keep on bike commuting. That was in 1982. I suspect the chance of being hit are lower now than they were then because I'm more aware and use many newly learned crash avoidance techniques. The more experienced you are, the safer you are.

https://bmjpublichealth.bmj.com/content/2/1/e001295
The British Medical Journal is an authoritative medical journal. This is not click-bait fake news.

The study shows the overall 'all cause mortality', which includes the possibility of dying in a traffic accident. Even with that taken into account, there is a 47% reduction in all cause mortality for the cyclists.

it's OK I'm a STEM prof. one must admit tho BMJ Public Health is less good than The BMJ but much better than that BMJ Open shizzle.

thanks for taking the time to post the primary article, so I can have a look myself at the study design.

yeah, those are some tiny sample sizes for the cyclists, which is possibly why it wasn't published higher.

decent study tho but not really my cup o' tea.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...9ba9b093c6.png

And you'll report back?

My quick 2-min synopsis is that is looks well-constructed and well analysed.

There is an effect of being a cyclist (I didn't look in detail to determin how this was determined) but the number of cyclists is small.

So small in fact, that I would assume that the cyclists are do other things lifestyle-wise that keep CVD low and overall healthiness high. The authors do NOT dwell on being a cyclist meaning anything ... they keep it observative.

I haven't watched the YT video as I don't go for so much popsci stuff but the title: "Study Finds Biking to Work HALVES Risk of Early Death."

Um, well, I doubt the authors would write that.

Maybe they'd say "behaviours that include being an active cyclist, reduced early mortality (death.)" They wouldn't stress any causation like the YT video. I would assume that nearly all cyclists are outliers in several lifestyle behaviours.

That's why I don't like these kinds of studies myself, but can understand the value when not over-inflated.

Hi!

I am watching the YT videos.

The first one is better than I expected but I will watch them all and comment.

Need to eat dinner atm (20.15 here).

The sample size 1300 cyclists (and 69,000 non cyclists) is not that small. If you look at all-cause mortality, you can see that entire 95% confidence interval lies well to the left of the control group median. There is a ~5% chance that the protective effect is anything less than 25%.
With a larger sample of cyclists, the exact amount of protection may vary by a few percentage point and the confidence interval would be narrower, but the overall protective effect of cycling, is clearly demonstrated here.

In my tiny sample of myself and my four brothers, I observe one cyclist and four non cyclists who also

- regularly eat on junk food
- regularly drink soft drinks
- are 50+ lbs overweight
- never walk further than the mailbox

We may all have similar genetic predisposition for certain diseases, but I'm betting they have higher liklihood of early morbidity, and it's not just due to cycling. If I couldn't ride starting tomorrow, I'm still not living like that.

I would assume you are correct. Judging by my personal observations I would assume that active cyclists are less likely to be smokers and/or heavy drinkers. I also wonder if the researchers recorded long term body weights and other habits/behaviors known to be catalysts if not causes of ill health of their sample subjects, and if the active cyclists had similar overall health profiles as the people in the non-active sample population.

I also assume that unhealthy people and people prone to known unhealthy habits like smoking, hard drug use and excessive drinking do not normally become active cyclists; or remain active cyclists for long.

Perhaps someone who has delved into this study has more info on the "active cyclist" sample and if it included cyclists who were not recreational or club cyclists, but rather people who are actively cycling because they no longer have the financial means to get around any other way, i.e people down on their luck, homeless and/or had their license revoked due to alcohol or drug abuse.

They did manage to find one of the most unhealthy populations on the planet, so maybe riding instead of eating more fried mars bars could over-exaggerate the differences (to use the Edward Abbey expression).

sure, the overall sample size of cyclists is large (10^3+) but the number of events leading to mean conclusion of the YouTube video is small (38 cyclists vs 3620 non-active). Hence the very large error bars.

CVD and cancer mortality are very low in terms of absolute events (11 and 15 events vs. 800 and 1000+) hence the huge error bars.

It seems well conducted but I'd still argue small sample size of a small population.

Glaswegians are made of different stuff than the rest of us :D, so I wouldn't relate this to the North American population.