Medical Research.com Interview with: James Woodcock Senior Research Associate UK CRC Centre for Diet and Activity Research MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Woodcock: The cycle hire scheme in London has benefited health through increasing physical activity. This reduces risk from a range of diseases including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and depression. These benefits were at a population level bigger than the harms the cyclists faced from injury risk or air pollution exposure.  Looking at the harms air pollution did not make much difference.  The injury risk for users of the hire bikes appears to not be higher and may be lower than that for general cycling in the same area. However, the injury risks for general cycling in the cycle hire zone were quite high and benefits for cyclists would be greater if these risks were reduced. When we broke results for general cycling in the area down by age & gender we found two interesting findings. Firstly, that the risks faced by women were higher than for men and so benefits were less clear. Secondly, when we looked at results by age group the trade-off improved very considerably as people got older and for younger people (under 30) there may actually be harms. (more…)