Obesity and Cancer

There are many diseases that are associated with obesity – high blood sugar, high blood pressure, infertility and arthritis to name a few.

The reason these red flags are spotted pretty quickly is because they are easy to detect – either due to symptoms or with routine tests.  But, there is another grave side-effect, one that takes longer to surface and is more complex to tackle – Cancer.

Obesity often leads to chronic inflammation of organs and tissues which over time damages the DNA which leads to cancer. Also, fat tissue produces excessive amounts of estrogen which is known to be associated with cancer of the breast, ovaries, etc and the increased secretion of insulin in diabetics may also be attributed to cancer of the liver, colon, kidney and other organs.

According to the data collected, obesity is linked to two of the most common cancers – breast and bowel and three of the cancers that are most difficult to treat – gall bladder, pancreas and oesophagus

One study assessed the increase in new cases of 18 types of cancers based on the prevalence of diabetes and high BMI in 175 countries between 1980 and 2002.

While liver cancer and endometrial cancer make for the largest number of cases whose causes can be traced to high BMI and diabetes, latest research shows that cancer of the kidney, oesophagus, myeloma and bladder can also be linked to diabetes and obesity.

These findings stress on the importance of tackling obesity and there by diabetes to stem the rise in the cancer cases attributable to them.

Bariatric surgery has an established track record in successfully tackling many obesity-related co morbidities besides weight-loss and transforming the health of the patients post surgery to lead a disease-free and stress-free life.

---