Cycling to Work and Your Health

For many people, the hardest part of exercise is finding time. A commute is time you already spend, which makes active commuting appealing. One large study from the United Kingdom compared people who traveled to work in different ways and followed them for health outcomes. This is general education, not medical advice.

The UK Biobank study

In 2017, Celis-Morales and colleagues published a study in the BMJ using data from the UK Biobank. It included 263,450 adults who commuted to work and followed them for a median of about five years. During that time there were 2,430 deaths, including 496 from cardiovascular disease and 1,126 from cancer.

• People who commuted by bicycle had about a 41 percent lower risk of dying from any cause than people who commuted by car or public transport (HR 0.59), after adjusting for factors such as age, sex, smoking, diet and other physical activity.
• People who combined cycling with another mode also had a lower risk, though the result was less clear-cut (HR 0.76).
• Walking commuters did not show a clear difference in all-cause mortality in this study.

How to read this

• It was observational. People who cycle to work may be fitter or live in different places, so the study cannot prove that cycling caused the benefit.
• Follow-up was short. Five years is short for studying deaths, and the number of events in some groups was small.
• Commuting is one slice of activity. The analysis adjusted for other exercise, but habits are hard to capture exactly.

Why cycling might help

Cycling raises the heart rate, uses large muscle groups and is gentle on joints for most people. Because it is built into the day, it is easier to repeat than a workout that needs a separate trip. Brisk walking also counts, even if this study did not pick up a difference. Our guides to how much walking is enough and the 10,000-steps myth explain how walking helps too.

Making it practical

• Start with part of the trip. Cycling to a transit stop or one or two days a week still adds activity.
• Plan a safe route. Quiet streets or bike lanes, working lights and a helmet make riding safer. These are general safety points, not findings from the study.
• Take it easy at first. Check with a clinician if you have heart or joint concerns.
• No bike or no route? Short bursts of movement still count, as we describe in exercise snacks and stair climbing.

Sources

• Celis-Morales CA, Lyall DM, Welsh P, et al. Association between active commuting and incident cardiovascular disease, cancer, and mortality: prospective cohort study. BMJ, 2017;357:j1456 (figures from the abstract and summaries).
• UK Biobank. Publication record for the study above.