The Association between Obesity and Cancer: The known truths between obesity and the various types of cancer

The Association between Obesity and Cancer can be a very big threat to good health if not addressed in time. Talk to your doctor in good time for advice.

At the mention of the disease cancer, people frown and stress and worries settle in. The condition becomes even worse when the patients struggling with this health condition are also obese or overweight. Experts all over the world are very much concern with the prevalence of obesity that is threatening to get out of hand. Unless we take some decisive action today, obesity is going to be the number one threat to health owing to its close association with other chronic diseases like cancer. In our previous article we discussed the relationship between obesity and some types of cancer, and we want to continue with the same in this article so that we can all be ready to eliminate the two conditions from our societies. We spoke to doctor Dalal Akoury a medical professional in various medical disciplines. Doctor Akoury is the MD and founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center a health facility whose primary objective is to help people transform their individual’s lives through increasing awareness about health and wellness and by empowering them to finding their own inner healing power. This is something that she has done for over two decades making one of the most experience professionals you can trust with your treatment. As you consider calling doctor Akoury, let us continue with the discussion about the association between obesity and cancer.

The Association between Obesity and Cancer: Obesity and Colorectal cancer

Being obese or overweight is closely associated with increased risk of colorectal cancer in men. This is mostly facilitated by the distribution of body fat especially with the abdominal obesity giving the clear evidence of an association with colon cancer risk. This is also seen in women but with little significance. However the use of MHT is likely to modify the association in postmenopausal women. A number of mechanisms have been proposed to account for the association of obesity with increased colon cancer risk. One hypothesis is that high levels of insulin or insulin-related growth factors in obese people may promote colon cancer development. High BMI is also associated with rectal cancer risk, but the increase in risk is more modest.

The Association between Obesity and Cancer: Obesity and kidney cancer

Obesity has been consistently associated with renal cell cancer, which is the most common form of kidney cancer, in both men and women. The mechanisms by which obesity may increase renal cell cancer risk are not well understood. High blood pressure is a known risk factor for renal cell cancer, but the relationship between obesity and kidney cancer is independent of blood pressure status. High levels of insulin may play a role in the development of the disease.

The Association between Obesity and Cancer: Obesity and Esophageal cancer

Overweight and obese people are about twice as likely as people of healthy weight to develop a type of esophageal cancer called esophageal adenocarcinoma. Most studies have observed no increased risk, or even a decline in risk, with obesity for the other major type of esophageal cancer, squamous cell cancer. The mechanisms by which obesity may increase risk of esophageal adenocarcinoma are not well understood. However, overweight and obese people are more likely than people of normal weight to have a history of gastro-esophageal reflux disease or Barrett esophagus, which are associated with an increased risk of esophageal adenocarcinoma. It is possible that obesity exacerbates the esophageal inflammation that is associated with these conditions.

Obesity and pancreatic cancer – Many studies have reported a slight increase in risk of pancreatic cancer among overweight and obese individuals. Waist circumference may be particularly important factor in the association of overweight and obesity with pancreatic cancer.

Obesity and thyroid cancer – Increasing weight has been found to be associated with an increase in the risk of thyroid cancer. However it is not very clear what the mechanism might be.

Obesity and gallbladder cancer – The risk of gallbladder cancer increases with increasing BMI. The increase in risk may be due to the higher frequency of gallstones, a strong risk factor for gallbladder cancer, in obese individuals.

Is there any possibility that avoiding weight gain decreases the risk of cancer?

This is very interesting acknowledges doctor Akoury, nonetheless the only way to ascertain this is through running a controlled clinical trials. A number of NIH-funded weight loss trials have in the past demonstrated that people can lose weight and that losing weight reduces their risk of developing chronic diseases, such as diabetes, while improving their risk factors for cardiovascular disease. It is also worth noting that the result emanating from the last trials, the NIC workshop findings demonstrated that it would not be feasible to conduct a weight loss trial of prevention of cancer. The question that follows would be why? The reason is a simple one that is the effect of weight loss trial of other chronic diseases would be demonstrated and the trial consequently stopped so that the public could be informed of the benefits before the effect on the prevention of cancer would become evident.

Therefore, most data about whether losing weight or avoiding weight gain prevents cancer come mainly from cohort and case-control studies. Data from these types of studies, called observational studies, can be difficult to interpret because people who lose weight or avoid weight gain may be different in other ways from people who do not, just as obese people may differ from lean people in other ways than BMI. That is, it is possible that these other differences explain their different cancer risk.

Nevertheless, many observational studies have shown that people who have a lower weight gain during adulthood have a lower risk of:

• Colon cancer
• Breast cancer (after menopause)
• Endometrial cancer

A more limited number of observational studies have examined the relationship between weight loss and cancer risk, and a few have found decreased risks of breast cancer and colon cancer among people who have lost weight. However, most of these studies have not been able to evaluate whether the weight loss was intentional or related to underlying health problems. It is because of such findings that made doctor Akoury to create AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center with a sole objective of transforming each individual’s life through increasing awareness about health and wellness and by empowering individuals to find their own inner healing power. If you want a more personalized medicine through healthy lifestyle choices that deal with primary prevention and underlying causes instead of patching up symptoms, then you need to schedule for that appointment with doctor Akoury today.

The Association between Obesity and Cancer: The known truths between obesity and the various types of cancer