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October 2015 | Read this issue and more at www.healthandwellnessmagazine.net |
Is There a Link Between
Obesity and Cancer?
Being overweight raises risk
By Angela S. Hoover, Staff Writer
As far back as 2008, scientists have
seen the link between obesity and
cancer. Doctors at the University of
Manchester in England concluded
from the records of nearly 300,000
cancer cases that being overweight
raises the risk of developing 20 different types of cancer. Their results
were published in a 2008 issue of The
Lancet journal.
Around the same time at the annual
meeting of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science in
Boston, nutrition expert Walter Willett
of the Harvard School of Public
Health predicted obesity will soon
replace smoking as the leading cause
of cancer in the developed world.
Willett backed up his assessment by
citing multiple studies on animals and
hundreds of thousands of humans.
He asserted there was little doubt to
the obesity-cancer connection. More
than 20 percent of cancers are associated with obesity, according to Willett,
compared to tobacco’s 30-percent rate.
Yet fewer Americans are smoking –
and more are gaining weight.
Flash forward to the fall of 2014,
when the American Society of Clinical
Oncology (ASCO) called for new
actions to address obesity and cancer.
The ASCO issued a policy statement
that October calling for increased
education, research and advocacy to
reduce obesity as a leading cause of
cancer and a complication in the care
of cancer patients. As critical priorities,
the ASCO recommended increased
education and awareness about the
links between obesity and cancer,
the development of new physician
tools and resources, intensified and
highly coordinated research and policy
changes to increase access to obesity
screening, diagnosis and treatment.
It is estimated that by 2030, almost
half a million Americans will be diagnosed with obesity-related cancers
annually. Among those with cancer,
obesity can increase the risk of cancer
recurrence and entail a lower survival
rate. An estimated one out of every
three cancer deaths in the United
States is linked to excess body weight,
poor nutrition and/or physical inactivity. Excess body weight alone is
attributed to as many as one out of five
cancer-related deaths.
More than two-thirds of adult
Americans are overweight or obese.
Overweight and obese individuals
have more fat tissues that can produce hormones, such as insulin and
estrogen, which can make cancer cells
grow. Being overweight or obese has
been linked to an increased risk for the
following cancers: breast cancer after
menopause, colon and rectum, endometrium (lining of the uterus), esophagus, kidney and pancreas. Gallbladder
cancer, liver cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, multiple myeloma, cervical
cancer, ovarian cancer and aggressive
forms of prostate cancer all may have
an increased risk due to weight.
How one’s weight changes throughout life can also affect cancer risks. A
high birth weight is associated with a
higher cancer risk. Being overweight
during childhood and young adulthood may be more of a risk factor than
gaining weight later in life for some
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cancers. Weight gain during adulthood is consistently associated with
an increased risk for several types of
cancers. Weight cycling – losing and
regaining weight repeatedly – is associated with a lower risk of cancer recurrence in cancer survivors.
Regardless of body weight, having too much belly fat is linked with
an increased risk of colon and rectal
cancer and possibly also a higher risk
of pancreas, endometrium and postmenopausal breast cancers. Excess
body weight affects immune system
function and inflammation; levels of
certain hormones – such as insulin
and estrogen; factors that regulate cell
growth, such as insulin-like growth
factor-1 (IGF-1); and proteins that
influence how the body uses certain
hormones, such as sex hormone-binding globulin.
Weight gain during
adulthood is
consistently associated
with an increased risk
for several types of
cancers.
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