New recommendations have been handed down by health experts to curb 12 different types of cancers associated with obesity. Obesity was found to be associated with prostate, ovarian, and breast cancer in this new report.
Experts suggest certain lifestyle changes in order to prevent these cancers from happening.
Obesity Linked With Cancer
During the European Congress on Obesity in Vienna, Austria, the World Cancer Research Fund released a new report titled "Diet, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Cancer: A Global Perspective." Experts gave 10 recommendations to help prevent the 12 cancers linked to obesity.
Cancers that the report linked obesity to include stomach, mouth and throat, liver, ovary, bowel, gallbladder, kidney, esophagus, pancreas, and womb. Two other types of cancer were also linked to obesity: breast cancer after menopause and advanced prostate cancer.
Recommendations made in the report to prevent cancer include maintaining a healthy weight, exercising, avoiding foods with high calories, reducing consumption of red and processed meat, limiting sugar-sweetened drinks, avoiding alcohol, and eating grains, vegetables, fruits, and beans. They also recommended decreasing dietary supplements and encouraged breastfeeding for babies.
Experts examined decades of data to come to the conclusion that obesity is associated with these types of cancer. WCRF says that there are no specific types of foods or nutrients that cause or protect cancer. Instead, there are different examples of diet and exercise that improve a person's metabolism that can change their chances of developing cancer.
Obesity has also been linked to other diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.
More Research On Obesity
WCRF participated in a different report at the National Cancer Research Institute Conference in November 2017. The report also deals with overweight and obesity, but it specifically shows that there had been a global increase in the number of men, women, boys, and girls who lived with obesity as compared to 1975.
There was an increase of 150 million among men that were obese, rising from 31 million in 1975 to 281 million in 2016. In women, the number rose from 69 million in 1975 to 390 million in 2016. Obesity in children rose 113 million in the same period of time. Boys and girls accounted for 11 million obese people in 1975 and 124 million in 2016.
Those numbers only dealt with obesity. The numbers for overweight people, who are not in the threshold of obesity, are also staggering. An additional 213 million children and adolescents and an additional 1.3 billion adults were found to be in the overweight range.
WCRF adds that people haven't changed in the last 40 years but the environment around them has. Choices that people make have a significant effect on their health. It also found that the increase in the number of obese people has been observed through all levels of wealth worldwide, from low-income, middle-income, to high-income countries.
