Fat under fire
Overweight and obesity raise cancer risk—but how?
By Richard Saltus
Bruce Spiegelman, PhD, searches for molecular links between cancer and obesity associated with fatty foods like those pictured below.
In this cancer-conscious age, people spend a lot of time worrying about the things they eat—and rightly so. But an important new message from research is that how much you consume may be just as important, or maybe even more so, as what is in your diet.
While much remains uncertain or in debate about the cancer-causing potential of various food ingredients, the evidence grows stronger all the time that being overweight or obese is a major cancer risk factor.
Until the last few years, concerns about excess weight and cancer had focused on a few isolated forms of the disease where the link was especially obvious, such as endometrial cancer in women. Recent studies, however, found that overweight contributes to a larger number of cancers than had been previously recognized. The National Cancer Institute is stepping up research in the field, from studies of body mass and cancer risk in large population groups down to investigations at the cellular level, where much remains unclear about how obesity triggers cancerous growth.
The obesity-cancer connection takes on greater importance against the backdrop of the worsening obesity epidemic in the United States. About 65 percent of Americans are overweight, and nearly one-third of Americans are classified as obese, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Investing in the research could have great rewards: Unlike many cancer risk factors, weight gain is often preventable.
"If we make further improvements in tobacco control, and the trend toward excess body weight continues, obesity could become the primary preventable risk factor for death from cancer," says Dana-Farber President Edward J. Benz Jr., MD.
- Next: Sounding the alarm
- Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4