Does Obesity Cause Cancer? Overweight And Cancer Risk

Do you know that more than 1 billion adults are either overweight or obese? Both conditions may increase the risk of many health problems, including diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers.

Does Obesity Cause Cancer

After smoking, obesity and overweight are the biggest preventable cause of cancer.

Which cancers are caused by overweight and obesity?

  • Bowel
  • Breast
  • Uterus
  • Kidney
  • Esophagus
  • Pancreas
  • Gallbladder
  • Prostate
  • Ovarian

Do you know that more than 1 billion adults are either overweight or obese? Both conditions may increase the risk of many health problems, including diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers (e.g. bowel, breast, gynecological, pancreas, prostate, and others). After smoking, obesity and overweight are the biggest preventable cause of cancer.

How does obesity cause cancer?

Visceral fat cells are large cells and when in excess, leave little room for oxygen and low-oxygen environments lead to inflammation. Chronic inflammation (regardless of site or cause) leads to a catabolic state (the metabolism tends towards the destruction of proteins).

The fat cells influence the way our body deals with sugar and insulin as well. Obesity can lead to a condition called insulin resistance (which is a “pre-diabetes” state) and consequentially the pancreas needs to produce more of it to achieve the same metabolic end effect. Insulin is a complex hormone with many functions, one of which is a cellular growth stimulator. This constant and excessive stimulation raises the risk for cancer development, since the faster cells divide, the higher the risk of a mutation which can lead to a cancer cell.

Being a manageable risk factor, there are ways to drastically reduce it and they don’t require any kind of drugs or special treatments. Physical activity (150 min of moderate activity or 75 of intense activity per week), a healthy diet, plenty of rest and reasonable amounts of alcohol (one drink a day for women and two for men) are enough to fight back against obesity and all diseases associated with it.