“We’ve known for a long time that excess weight is an important factor in cancer risk,” The cancer society says excess weight contributes to as many as 20 % of all cancer deaths.
“This study is interesting because it suggests that the number of years you spend being overweight also matters,” and that should provide further incentive to avoid excess weight gain in the first place. Because more women have a higher risk for getting cancer than men, this research study was done on women, but the principles of being overweight adding to your risk of cancer pertain to both men and women.
Currently, about 7 out of 10 adults in the United States are overweight, and more than one-third are obese, according to background notes with the study.
I’m sure that you’ve heard on the news about the increase in cancer in people over 50. Over the past 30 years, Americans have almost doubled the amount of people on cancer drugs. So why the big increase in cancer patients? It’s because of our diet. The population keeps gaining weight, we are becoming a fatter society and its body fat that stores the chemicals that we consume in our foods. Your body can’t process the chemicals in our food so the body stores those chemicals in fat cells and over time you will develop cancer. Depending on your physical condition, our bodies will fight off some of these cancer cells, but the older we get the less ability our body has to fight the cancer in our cells and finally the cancer cells will win the battle.
So why doesn’t everyone get cancer? Some of us won’t live long enough, we’ll die of something else first. Other people never ate enough of the chemicals in food and their bodies were strong enough to fight off any cancer cells they had. Keeping your body strong, staying thin, eating healthy foods is all part of helping your body fight disease and illness. Excess fat will slow down body functions and keep your body from defending itself against diseases.
Over the next dozen years, just over 6,300 women developed a form of cancer that has been linked to obesity, such as breast, ovarian, endometrial, colon, kidney, liver or pancreatic cancer.
It turned out that the risk of developing any of those cancers rose in tandem with the number of years a woman had been overweight.
Cancers like colon, kidney, liver, prostate or pancreatic cancer are prevalent in men that are overweight.
On average, the study found, the odds rose by 10 percent for every 10 years a woman had been obese. Similarly, they climbed by 7 percent for every decade she’d been overweight. The statistics for men are similar.
When the researchers took a closer look, four cancers were clearly connected to the duration of a woman’s excess weight: breast, endometrial, colon and kidney. But the findings do not prove excess weight causes these cancers.
The findings suggest that when it comes to curbing cancer risk, “obesity and overweight prevention is essential, at any age.”
Why is excess weight related to cancer risk? According to researchers, it’s difficult to isolate effects of obesity, per se, since it often goes hand-in-hand with lifestyle habits and medical conditions that have also been linked to cancer.
Those include smoking, lack of exercise, poor diet and type 2 diabetes.
Try to maintain a healthy weight throughout adulthood. Having a healthy body weight is always beneficial — not only to prevent cancer but also other diseases associated with [excess weight].
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If you want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans.
Look for my first book at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.
My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.
Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.