While we know obesity can be a factor in cardiovascular disease and other chronic illnesses, a startling report from the United Kingdom shows that obesity can contribute to cancer — especially for women.
Even worse: A new report from Cancer Research U.K. found that the percentage of women who develop obesity-related cancer could surpass the number of cases related to smoking by 2043 if changes aren’t made. Currently, 10 percent of cancers in British women are caused by smoking, while about 9 percent are caused by obesity.
Though men are more likely to be obese, the percentage of them with obesity-related cancer isn’t expected to increase in the U.K.
Does obesity cause cancer?
Though the report focused on people living in the United Kingdom, obesity is a problem in much of the developed world. In the United States, at least one in five adults in every state is obese.
Much of the focus on obesity relates to how it affects cardiovascular health, but several studies have shown a link between obesity and the development of certain cancers. However, as the National Cancer Institute points out, most of the evidence that connects obesity and cancer comes from observational studies known as cohort studies.
“However, data from observational studies can be difficult to interpret and cannot definitively establish that obesity causes cancer,” the NCI writes. “That is because obese or overweight people may differ from lean people in ways other than their body fat, and it is possible that these other differences — rather than their body fat — are what explains their different cancer risk.”
That said, these studies have shown that obese women are two to four times as likely to develop endometrial cancer than women of normal weight — and morbidly or extremely obese women are seven times as likely.
Obese people are also twice as likely to develop kidney cancer, liver cancer and gastric cardia cancer — a type of cancer that affects the upper stomach — than those who are a normal weight. Obese postmenopausal have a 20 to 40 percent increased risk of developing breast cancer than those who aren’t obese.
How to prevent obesity-related cancer
The obvious answer is to lower the number of people with obesity.
“Obesity is a huge public health threat right now, and it will only get worse if nothing is done,” said Linda Bauld, Cancer Research U.K.’s prevention expert, told the BBC.
Bauld seems to advocate for an approach that rivals that of anti-smoking campaigns.
“The decline in smoking is a cause for celebration. It shows how decades of effort to raise awareness about the health risks plus strong political action — including taxation, removing tobacco marketing and a ban on smoking in indoor public places — have paid off,” she added.
“It is alarming that obesity could soon become the biggest preventable cause of cancer in women, but sadly not surprising,” Caroline Cerny of the Obesity Health Alliance, a coalition of over 40 organizations and charities working to reduce obesity, told CNN.
“Environmental factors such as advertising and promotion of unhealthy food and drink are contributing to this public health crisis,” Cerny added.
