Obesity Can be the Main Cause of Many “Diseases of Civilization”, Including Cancer

Recent research link obesity, which has reached the level of epidemic in the industrialised world, to a widespread incidence of many current illnesses, including diabetes, cancer, and heart attack. A new report on the connections between body fat and various cancers has been published this week in the prestigious British medical journal Lancet.

Accordance to the publication, obesity can be directly responsible for more than 12 different types of cancer at most body areas. British scientists, who conducted a major study combining 141 different research on more than two dozens kinds of cancer and almost 300,000 cancer case histories, came to a conclusion that people with an increased body mass index (BMI) run a higher risk of developing kidney, thyroid, colon, rectal, oesophagus, pancreas, gallbladder, and endometrial types of cancer. In addition to this list, obese people have a higher incidence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, leukemia, and blood cell cancer. Overweight men develop a deadly form of skin cancer, known as malignant melanoma, more often than men with a normal BMI. Overweight post-menopausal women are in a higher risk of developing breast cancer than slim women of the same age.

Unfortunately, current obesity tendencies, observed in most countries of the industrialized world, show that people are becoming fatter with a speed never imagined before. Majority of Americans, Canadians, Australians, Germans, and Brits are currently either overweight or obese. These alarming trends make researchers suggest that body fat can become even more dangerous for the health of the population than smoking. Currently, tobacco consumption is number one cause of various cancers, but new data show that more and more cases of cancer are directly related to obesity.

The researchers have found that about 30 excess pounds in men and 26 extra pounds in women can represent an increased risk of developing a dozen forms of cancer. Generally, the leaner and fitter people are, the lower their risk of developing not only cancer, but also Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. It has been estimated that overweight men and women are almost twice as likely to develop oesophageal, kidney, thyroid, colorectal and gallbladder cancers than those without excess weight. At that, the association for gallbladder and kidney cancers is stronger in women, while colon cancer has a higher prevalence in men.

Scientists still do not know why overweight is linked to many cancer cases, nor do they know whether obese people can lower their heath risks by slimming.

In accordance with one theory, cancer formation can be triggered by an increased circulation of cell-proliferating hormones, which is typically observed in overweight people. Another hypothesis states that adipose cells, especially those located in the abdominal area, produce specific toxins and send abnormal chemical messages that can damage other cells of the body and make them develop cancer.

An article accompanying the Lancet publication said that roughly 30,000 death cases in Great Britain are directly caused by obesity, while in the US this number can be ten times bigger.

Lada Brown

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