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Home > Weight Loss Information > Health Issues > Obesity and its Relationship with Cancer
Obesity and its Relationship with Cancer
During the last years, obesity has become an epidemic in the United States. The medical care and loss of productivity costs are huge, and it is estimated that if obesity keeps growing at the current rate, we will reach a point when the costs of treating diabetes and its complications will overwhelm the NHS.
The connection between obesity and cancer is surprising. Many people never think that there is a relationship between these two, and this is to a certain extent because by the time a patient is diagnosed with cancer, they are often ill and thin. Cancer is also strongly associated with smoking, and smokers tend to be thinner than non-smokers. However, a study made with people aged over 16 years and who were non-smokers, showed that both, men and women who had higher levels of Body Mass Index (BMI) were at a greater risk of suffering several types of cancer; kidney, uterus, and liver cancers showed a particularly dramatic increase in risk.
Possible causes of the relationship of obesity with cancer include excess weight, poor diet, too much energy intake and low levels of physical activity. Recent studies have associated low physical activity with breast cancer and a much stronger connection with colorectal cancer. People who exercise constantly and are physically active have a much lower risk of falling victim to cancer. In a similar fashion, there are diet factors that contribute both to obesity and cancer risk, especially low consumption of fruit and vegetables, lack of fiber, and over consumption of animal fats. Finally, it is suspected that the mass of body fat, particularly in the abdominal area, contributes to cancer risk directly. Also, adipose tissue, or fat cells secrete a wide range of different hormones. This may explain why breast cancer is more common among obese women.
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Permission is granted to reproduce this article as long as the above resource paragraph is left intact with active links.
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