Study: Fat Causes 90,000 U.S. Cancer Deaths a Year

AP via Foxnews.com ^ | 4/24/03 | AP

[jalisco555]

Losing weight could prevent one of every six cancer deaths in the United States -- more than 90,000 each year, according to a sweeping study that experts say links fat and cancer more convincingly than ever before.

Researchers spent 16 years evaluating 900,000 people who were cancer-free when the study began in 1982. They concluded that excess weight may account for 14 percent of all cancer deaths in men and 20 percent of those in women.

[jalisco555]

Food for thought.

[cogitator]

Food for thought.

Think before you eat.

[F16Fighter]

Paging Jerrold Nadler...

[templar]

Something to chew on.

[DrNo]

There are two big reasons the overall link is stronger in women than in men, Calle said.

"More women are obese," she said.

This used to be called a non sequiter.

Then bringing up breast cancer only makes it salacious.

[thoughtomator]

Both Ryan and Calle said attitudes must change about weight the way they did about smoking. They said communities, workplaces, schools and transportation all need to change to make it easier both to eat right and exercise. "We've developed a culture where you have to work really hard to eat right and exercise," Calle said. "We're kind of stacking the deck against ourselves.

"Until we accept that it is a bigger problem than one of individual discipline, we probably won't be too successful in turning it around."

Time for the lawyers of fast-food chains and junk-food manufacturers to start preparing for the inevitable tobacco-style class-action suit. Then the states' attorneys general can extort more hundreds of billions, earmark them for health care, and spend them on mohair subsidies.

[liberalnot]

the american health system, already dysfunctional, will implode within 5 years as the impact of fat people collides with reality.

a college nurse told me that she regularly sees teens with blood sugars of 600 (normal 70-120).

type-2 diabetes used to be a disease of the elderly. but now with high fructose corn syrup in almost every food product, type-2 has gravitated downwards to young people.

the reality is--you can't eat what the majority of americans eat daily and stay healthy, period, regardless of republican or democrat politics! not to mention no exercise, sitting in a recliner, watching tv an average of 8 hours per day.

[honeygrl]

Are they going to outlaw fat now?

[SkiHatGuy]

Define fat.

The definition has changed with the introduction of the BMI. According to it, I'm borderline obese (5'9", 205 lbs), despite the fact that I can run a 6 minute mile, touch a 10 foot rim on a basketball goal and play sports 3 times a week (basketball and volleyball). Do the people who made this scale up want everyone to look like Lara Flynn Boyle?

[Lil'freeper]

The title of the article is misleading. The author should have said "Obesity Causes 90,000..." as the original insinuates the consumption of fat causes cancer.

[areafiftyone]

I am wondering how true that is. Look at Linda McCartney - she was skinny as a rail and a vegetarian and she died of cancer. So many skinny people die of cancer too and not just breast cancer! This is very strange!

[jalisco555]

Define fat.

This is from the abstract of the Journal article:

The heaviest members of this cohort (those with a body-mass index [the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters] of at least 40) had death rates from all cancers combined that were 52 percent higher (for men) and 62 percent higher (for women) than the rates in men and women of normal weight. For men, the relative risk of death was 1.52 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.13 to 2.05); for women, the relative risk was 1.62 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.40 to 1.87). In both men and women, body-mass index was also significantly associated with higher rates of death due to cancer of the esophagus, colon and rectum, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, and kidney; the same was true for death due to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and multiple myeloma. Significant trends of increasing risk with higher body-mass-index values were observed for death from cancers of the stomach and prostate in men and for death from cancers of the breast, uterus, cervix, and ovary in women. On the basis of associations observed in this study, we estimate that current patterns of overweight and obesity in the United States could account for 14 percent of all deaths from cancer in men and 20 percent of those in women.

[brianl703]

The BMI doesn't take into account the three body types: ectomorph/endomorph/mesomorph.

[F16Fighter]

"Define fat."

Refer to post #3

[PaxMacian]

:-) DONUTS :-)

[RedBloodedAmerican]

And yet Rosie lives on. Where is justice?

[NotQuiteCricket]

When I started smoking, I lost weight (70lbs). If I quit smoking and re-gain the weight - does that mean that I will die of cancer? I'm confused, which is worse, being overweight, or smoking?

[larryjohnson]

Lift weights.

[Xthe17th]

There they go bad-mouthing West Virginians again!

;) Anyway, I hope this is true cause I'm down 10 lbs (out of a needed 40) so far this year.