Personal Health Risks Obesity Linked to Cancer/Death
The identification of new obesity-related cancer sites will add to the number of deaths worldwide attributable to obesity.
In 2013, there were an estimated 4.5 million deaths worldwide attributable to overweight and obesity. Longevity and wellness is linked to body weight. The absence of excess body fatness reduces the risk of cancers.
These 13 cancers are linked to obesity ― colorectal, esophageal (adenocarcinoma), renal cell carcinoma, breast cancer in postmenopausal women, uterine endometrial cancer, stomach (gastric cardia), liver, gall bladder, pancreas, ovarian, thyroid, meningioma, and multiple myeloma.
Several mechanisms linking excess body fat with carcinogenesis were identified, including chronic inflammation and dysregulation of the metabolism of sex hormones, the IARC notes.
Extra Weight Piles on Knee Arthritis Risk
Doctors have few weapons to treat obesity. There are detrimental physical and mental consequences of obesity. Medications and surgery infrequently help. Self prevention of obesity is very important for improving the health of our country AND decreasing expenditures for health care. It is time people take ownership of their well being. Eliminating obesity is a mission of top priority.
Reuters Health summarized the findings.
Researchers calculate that as many as half of all cases of knee osteoarthritis could be prevented if obesity was eliminated. Being overweight (BMI 26-30) doubles a person’s risk for osteoarthritis of the knees and being obese (BMI > 30) quadruples it, according to a new review of past studies that was designed to calculate how many knee arthritis cases would be avoided in a normal-weight world.
The researchers calculated that as many as half of all cases of knee osteoarthritis could be prevented if obesity was eliminated.
One in ten people over age 55 have severe knee arthritis, and many more suffer from chronic knee pain, researchers report.
Zhang and his colleagues reviewed 47 studies that compared the chance of developing knee osteoarthritis in normal weight, overweight, and obese people, including a total of almost 450,000 participants.
What is clear is that extra weight and arthritis are closely linked.
Extra weight can also increase a person’s chance of getting arthritis in the hip, but the knee “is the joint where osteoarthritis causes the most trouble, (and) it’s the one where obesity has its strongest effects.”
Lots to Lose: How America’s Health and Obesity Crisis Threatens our Economic Future
A report released by the nonprofit Bipartisan Policy Center offers recommendations for public and private sector promotion of healthy nutrition and exercise to reduce obesity. “Lots to Lose: How America’s Health and Obesity Crisis Threatens our Economic Future” states that escalating healthcare costs are the primary driver of an increasing national debt, and obesity-related illness is an increasing portion of healthcare costs. Among other things, the report argues that nutrition and physical activity training should be incorporated in all phases of medical education, and that large, private-sector institutions should procure and serve healthier foods, using their significant market power to shift food supply chains and make healthier options more available and cost-competitive.
We Can Do Better – Americans Not Much Healthier Now Compared to 15 Years Ago
Our biggest enemies are our own bad habits – poor diet, smoking and obesity. They’re far more dangerous to our health than pollution or risks from radiation. And although women used to be far healthier than men, men are closing the gap fast, the survey by Dr. Christopher Murray of the University of Washington and colleagues finds.
“We need to really try to get at the social and environmental causes of these issues and really focus on true prevention, which is not managing in a clinical setting but creating the conditions where this doesn’t happen in the first place.”
Americans may be living longer and even exercising a little more, but we really are not much healthier than we were 10 years ago and we are still far behind other rich countries when it comes to our health, researchers said Wednesday.
Americans lost ground compared to people living in other countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
“There are places with the best life expectancy in the world in the U..S., and there are places in Mississippi, for example, or West Virginia where life expectancies are in the mid-60s for men and low 70s for women. That’s about the same as a number of poor developing countries,” Murray says.
The biggest killers: clogged arteries (known medically as ischemic heart disease), lung cancer, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and road accidents.
But the diseases that caused the most misery, known in the lingo as disability-adjusted life years, are low back pain, major depressive disorder, other musculoskeletal disorders, neck pain, and anxiety disorders.
In other words, individuals in the US are living longer, but not necessarily in good health,” they concluded.
“For the first time we’re saying that the composition of diet, which is made up 14 different components, things like fruits, grains, nuts, seeds (and) other aspects of diet being analyzed is the biggest determinant of health in the US, followed by smoking, followed by obesity, and then followed by high blood sugar and physical inactivity,” Murray told NBC news.
“So if you put all of those together there’s huge potential to improve health in the U.S. and in fact get ahead of other high income countries if we were to address these modifiable risks.”
“It’s unsophisticated to say it’s because we are not eating right,” Woolf said in a telephone interview.
“There is a large contingent of Americans who react by saying this is a matter of personal responsibility. To some extent that’s true but there is much more about the way our lives are structured in the U.S.”.
“OECD countries are spending more on education and income support than we do and that is what is helping to create this healthier environment.”
