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Why That Muffin Top Puts You At Risk for Cancer

 
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 cancer risk increases with muffin top Creatas Images/Thinkstock

Health researchers have known for quite some time that women who pack on extra pounds are putting themselves at higher risk for certain types of cancer.

Researchers have also long believed that inflammation is associated with the development of cancer, and those extra pounds are often responsible for triggering inflammation in the body.

Now a groundbreaking study has now shown postmenopausal women who are overweight or obese but lost at least 5 percent of their body weight could measurably lower markers of inflammation, thus lowering their risk for future cancer.

To see if women could change inflammation biomarkers without drugs by simply changing their lifestyles, Anne McTiernan, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Prevention Center at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, led the Nutrition and Exercise Study for Women (NEW), a four-year randomized controlled trial study.

For the NEW study, Dr. McTiernan and colleagues assigned 439 women to a weight loss intervention with the goal of losing 10 percent of their body weight over one year with diet alone, combining diet with aerobic exercise, or exercise without diet modifications.

The researchers measured participants’ inflammation biomarker levels throughout the study. Biomarkers are distinct substances in the body that indicate if certain health conditions are present.

McTiernan and colleagues found women in the diet and exercise group who lost at least 5 percent of their body weight benefited the most, but even those in the diet only group who lost weight saw measurable benefits. However women in the exercise-only group saw little effect on their inflammation biomarker levels.

Possibly as much as one-quarter of all cancers are due to excess weight and a sedentary lifestyle, the study said.

Packing on too much weight is linked to esophageal cancer, postmenopausal breast cancer, endometrial (lining of the uterus) cancer, as well as colorectal cancer, kidney, pancreatic, thyroid, gallbladder, and possibly other cancer types, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The standard measure used to determine if a person has a healthy weight or not is the body mass index (BMI). The measure uses a person’s height and weight to calculate his or her overall fat versus muscle makeup.

Women who are classified as overweight have a (BMI) between 25 and 29. A woman is obese if her BMI is 30 or above. A healthy-weight woman has a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 percent.

Just how much of a collective weight problem does the United States have? The answer might surprise you.

According to results from the 2007-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 68 percent of U.S. adults, age 20 years and older, are overweight or obese. By contrast, in 1988-1994, 56 percent of adults in the same age group were overweight or obese.

If the current obesity trends continue, by 2030 it is estimated Americans will experience an increase of 500,000 additional cancer cases.

However, NHANES found if every U.S. adult reduced their BMI by just 1 percent (roughly 2.2 pounds for an average weight person) not only would the U.S. cancer burden not increase, we could avoid 100,000 new cancer cases.

Although the NEW study has it limitations, “it adds to the growing understanding we have about the link between obesity and cancer, and it appears we can directly affect inflammation through non-pharmaceutical means,” said Dr. McTiernan in a written statement. “We are not talking about drastic weight loss here, anyone can do this.”

To see what your BMI is, try The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention’s easy-to-use BMI calculator at http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/

The results of the NEW study are published in the May 1, 2012 edition of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Lynette Summerill is an award-winning writer and Scuba enthusiast living in San Diego, CA with her husband and two beach loving dogs. In addition to writing about cancer-related issues for EmpowHER, her work has been featured in newspapers and magazines around the world.

Sources and consumer information:

“Effects of a Caloric Restriction Weight Loss Diet and Exercise on Inflammatory Biomarkers in Overweight/Obese Postmenopausal Women: A Randomized Controlled Trial.” Anne McTiernan et al. Cancer Res;72(9) 2314-2325. May 1, 2012.
http:www.aacrjournals.org

Obesity and Cancer Risk Fact Sheet. National Institutes of Health. Accessed online at:
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/obesity

Why Cancer and Inflammation? Yale J Biol Med. 2006 December; 79(3-4): 123–130. Published online 2007 October. Seth Rakoff-Najoum. Abstract at:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1994795

Key Statistics from NHANES. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed online 30 April 2012 at: http://wwwn.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/bibliography/key_statistics.aspx

Weight Loss Led to Reduction in inflammation. AACR News Release. Jeremy Moore. 1 May 2012

Reviewed May 1, 2012
by Michele Blacksberg RN
Edited by Jody Smith

Add a Comment3 Comments

Blogger

I agree that our society is in big health trouble if we keep on the way we are. We have to educate ourselves and not fall for the advertising in the media. We have to take control of our health. Yes, some will say you have to eat a certain diet to be health-no meat for instance. We do not have to be extreme. Moderation is the key and eating our food in a form as close to its natural state as possible.

May 2, 2012 - 1:59pm
EmpowHER Guest
Anonymous (reply to springs)

Agreed, something has to change... the current course is unsustainable. Have a nice evening. Ian

May 2, 2012 - 4:23pm
EmpowHER Guest
Anonymous

Evolution is the Result of Change
Ian Welch
www.wholefed.org

The most effective way to lose weight and sustain that weight loss is adopting a Plant Based diet.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”Charles Darwin

There is no substitute for Trial & Error when dealing with your own well-being.

I was introduced to a very interesting train of thought last night on TED. The speaker was Tim Harford.

In his presentation, he explains how Unilever designed the perfect nozzle to manufacture laundry detergent. Quite simply in manufacturing detergent you take a liquid form and spray it on a surface to dry. Once dry you package and sell it. The difficulty in the process is getting the nozzle to spray the liquid just right, in the perfect size for drying. Unilever initially hired the most brilliant engineers in the world to design the nozzle and no one could get it right. Eventually they simply began to try hundreds of different designs, and gradually tweak the nozzles that showed promise. Ultimately this approach resulted in the perfect nozzle for manufacturing. No one could explain why it worked so well, it just did.

The point is, no expert could design it. Sometimes it doesn’t take the smartest person in the room to get it right. In nature, it is the gradual adaptation through painstakingly slow mutations that result in the most successful results.

We are constantly bombarded with the expert opinions, the large corporations telling us exactly what will fix our problems. With health it is generally the largest marketing budget that “shouts down from the mountain”; we are right, we have the solution.

If history can teach us anything; we need to pay attention to works well for us and we do this through the Trial & Error process.

Darwin when writing the Origin of Species would have agreed that almost all improvements are a result of Trial & Error. “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

If you have diabetes, then you need to experiment with a different approach. You need to look for solutions that offer a minute improvement. And then improve on the improvement. If you are overweight you need to examine the cause. Breakdown the data and tweak with the input to get different results.

We need to continue to evolve as a species. True change in nature occurs over very long periods of time but we can exploit that knowledge. We can speed up the discovery phase and experiment with our own well-being. Why wait for thousands of years to conclude that the food we are eating is killing us off one by one. The beauty of eating healthy is the change occurs very rapidly. We improve our health and thus improve our lives. We live longer and pass on our habits to the next generation. Albeit these are not genetic changes; yet… it does give us the opportunity to change our destiny within our own lifetime.

“In a complicated society, we give up to the God-complex, listening to the authorities who have all the answers, instead of facing the task of fixing the problem. Tim Harford tells us that when a problem persists, the method to fix it is simple: trial and error. Experimenting helped me find my perfect running gait. Maybe we can use this method to improve bigger systems, on the scale of societies. Communities can be different and each type needs the leadership and experience of its citizens. If only we can use our humility to admit that we don’t have the answers and our strength to face our problems, fail, and try again. And the confidence to challenge the authorities who tell us they have the answers. By acclimating, we can continue to exist. By reasoning and experimentation, we will thrive.” Tim Harford

http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_harford.html

May 1, 2012 - 10:50am
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We value and respect our HERWriters' experiences, but everyone is different. Many of our writers are speaking from personal experience, and what's worked for them may not work for you. Their articles are not a substitute for medical advice, although we hope you can gain knowledge from their insight.

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