(15-01-07) OBESITY WILL LEAD TO INCREASE IN CANCER RISK

Britain's spiralling rates of obesity will lead to thousands more cancer cases, experts are warning today. Within just four years, the number of cancers triggered by people's weight could shoot up by 10 per cent, new research predicts.
This would amount to as many as 12,000 new cancer cases diagnosed each year.
Experts say obesity is known to heighten the risk of developing breast and womb cancers, plus it may play a role in some bowel and kidney tumours. It can also reduce survival chances as the disease can be harder to spot in people who are overweight and so, by the time it is diagnosed, treatment may be more difficult.
UK experts are therefore urging people to ensure they eat healthily and take regular exercise to cut their risk of cancer.
Currently in the UK 23 per cent of men and a quarter of women are obese. Government experts have worked out that the number of overweight or obese Britons is set to rise from 24.2 million in 2003 to 27.6 million by 2010.
Based on this, Cancer Research UK statisticians have now worked out this could cause an extra 1,500 weight-related cancers annually in 2010.
They warned that obesity is second only to smoking as the biggest preventable cause of cancer, few people are aware of this.
A recent survey by the charity showed that just 29 per cent of overweight or obese people realised that it can raise the risk of cancers.
Professor Tim Key, an epidemiologist at Cancer Research UK, said: "It is now well established that being overweight increases the risk of developing several types of cancer.
"The effects on breast and womb cancer are almost certainly due to the increased production of the hormone oestrogen in the fatty tissue. "We are less sure of the precise mechanisms in other obesity-related cancers but we can confidently predict that the number of these cases will increase unless the rise in obesity in Britain can be reversed."
Dr Lesley Walker, the charity's director of cancer information, added: "Eating healthily and exercising regularly is the best way to maintain a healthy body weight and to reduce your cancer risk."
The charity is urging people to try to maintain a Body Mass Index of between 20 and 25, eat a balanced diet including five portions of fruit or vegetables a day, and lead an active lifestyle including exercise.
It is also calling for a new strategy to try to halt the rising levels of obesity, particularly in children where rates have tripled in the last 20 years.
This weekend it emerged the Government is to start offering dance classes on the National Health Service in a bid to counter declining fitness levels and reduce obesity rates
The schemes will include street-dancing, tango classes and trampolining among a range of activities funded by NHS trusts

At the same time GPs are to be issued with questionnaires to help them assess the fitness levels of those patients whose lifestyles give cause for concern
To work out Body Mass Index (BMI) doctors take the person's height in metres and multiply it by itself
They then divide their weight, in kilograms, by this number to get their BMI
A normal BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9, with 25 classed as overweight and 30 as obese.

Fonte: Daily Mail

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