Sedentarity and Colorectal Cancer in Morocco

Background: The colorectal cancer (CRC) ranks third among the most nationally prevalent cancers. Several factors including lifestyle modifications are interacting for the emergency of this disease. Morocco has experienced an epidemiologic transition accompanied by the adoption of an unhealthy lifestyle and the physical activity and the sedentary behavior changes. Aim: This study aimed to identify the association between sedentary lifestyle and the onset risk of CRC in Morocco. Methods: This is a national multicenter study of cases/controls which were matched on the sex, age and the recruiting center. All data are collected through a retrospective questionnaire including socio-demographic characters and the lifestyle behaviors (physical activity and sedentary). A sedentary person is defined as being more than 4 hours in a sitting or lying position, at work, at home, during travel, excluding time spent on sleep. Conditional logistic regression was performed to assess the association between sedentary behavior and CRC risk taking into account confounders. Data entry and data analyses were performed by SPSS software 20. Results: In total, 1453 couples (case/control) have been included in this study. 50.2% had colon cancer and 49.8% had rectal cancer. The average age were respectively 56.45 ± 13.95 years and 55.50 ± 13.70 years. For the sex, there were 49.3% male and 50.7% female in each group (case/control). The majority of the cases and controls fall into the poor class. The majority of the cases (43.7%) are overweight with a BMI between 25 and 29.9, 38.7% have a normal weight with a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9. For controls, patients with normal weight (45.6%) and those with overweight (43%) represent the majority. With regard to sedentary behavior, we note that cases are more sedentary (as being >4 hours in a sitting or lying position, at work, at home, during travel, excluding time spent on sleep) than controls with a percentage of 40.5% cases vs 36.2% of controls and a significant difference between cases and controls with OR = 1.19 (1.03-1.39), P = 10−3. Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that sedentary lifestyle is an overall risk factor for CRC. The issue of sedentary life is a major public health issue. Efforts must be made to address this sedentary problem, which will become an even more important health problem in the age of technology, with the massive use of activities that further entrap sedentary life such as social networks.