Health Issues Caused by Obesity by Jean Ford

Author:Jean Ford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Health Issues Caused by Obesity
ISBN: 9781422288450
Publisher: National Highlights Inc
Published: 2015-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

A Stealthy

Invader: Cancer

• Breast Cancer

• Colon (Colorectal) Cancer

• Esophageal Cancer

• Other Cancers

Think for a moment about the following statistics. Women who gain twenty pounds more after age eighteen have a 15 percent higher risk of postmenopausal breast cancer, and women who gained fifty-five pounds had a 45 percent higher risk, and 33,000 breast cancer cases each year are due to obesity. Large waist size (abdominal obesity) is associated with colorectal cancer. The higher a person’s BMI is, the greater his likelihood of developing esophageal cancer. The American Cancer Society attributes undesirable dietary practices and resulting weight issues to nearly one-third of the 580,000 annual cancer deaths in the United States alone.

Granted, the relationship between obesity and cancer is mostly statistical. The numbers show that obese people suffer from greater cancer rates, but a direct cause and effect relationship has yet to be proven or understood. Nevertheless, study after study confirms a link exists. The first studies associating obesity with cancer began as early as the 1940s. Over the decades since then, medical opinions have shifted back and forth regarding any relationship, but current wisdom supports a definite connection.

For example, the American Cancer Society recently concluded a large, long-term study of this connection and found increased rates of kidney, stomach, and uterine cancers among the obese. It also found increased rates of cancers like colon, rectal, and prostate in men; and cervical, ovarian, gallbladder, and breast in women. Clearly researchers see an association, but they don’t understand exactly why it exists.

That’s not surprising when you realize that not all cancers are alike. Each form is a unique disease in and of itself. Individual types of cancer exhibit distinct cellular characteristics, progress at certain speeds, respond to different therapies, and metastasize (spread) to different sites. Why? As of yet, no one really knows. The profiles of each cancer and each person with cancer are simply too varied to draw any single conclusion. For example, environmental exposure might explain one malignancy, while genetic factors or lifestyle determine another. Or a combination of known and unknown elements may be the culprit. Given all conceivable causes of cancer, isolating one specific cause with absolute certainty becomes practically impossible. And if we don’t know exactly what causes cancer, then understanding why the obese develop cancer more often also becomes impossible.

Despite not understanding the why and how of obesity’s relationship to cancer, we do know that a relationship exists. People suffering from obesity are at an increased risk of developing specific types of cancer. What kinds of cancer does obesity effect? Let’s look at the most common.

Breast Cancer

Many studies have found that obesity impacts breast cancer two ways. First, it tremendously increases the postmenopausal woman’s risk of getting the disease, and second, it increases the likelihood she won’t survive. (Obesity lowers survival rates, not only of cancer, but also of many health conditions.)

The main reason for increased fatality rates is that excess fat obscures and delays discovery of the tumors. A study presented at the 2010

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