Two Common Links to the Deadliest Cancers

In the United States alone, cancer is the second deadliest cause of death. Heart is disease is the first. You might know someone who has succumbed to one or both of theses diseases.

Cancer can be prevented by making a few lifestyle changes. You would think of quitting smoking, limited exposure to the sun, or a myriad of factors related to environmental factors would decrease chances of getting cancer. That would be true as an educated guess. As more scientists learn more about cancer, the results are much clearer; obesity and poor diets under our control are the biggest culprits with the initiation and spread of cancer cells. In an opinion poll, 2013 Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, only seven percent of respondents said there was a link between obesity, nutrition and cancer.

Each of us produce cancer cells everyday and, by age 40, almost everyone harbors some tumor cells. It take decades to progress to billions of cells leading to cancer unless we change our lifestyle factors that will diminish or grow the cells. The first factor related to cancer growth and to a number of degenerative diseases is chronic inflammation. It is at the root of everything including back pain, arthritis, autoimmune disorders, heart disease and cancer. We have to fight this deadly enemy EVERYDAY!Our life does depend on it.

In the second link to cancer, and even to other diseases related to chronic inflammation, the extra weight a body carries triggers chronic inflammation. It is not a stretch of the truth to see how obesity and cancer are linked. Study after study has shown that excess weight not only increases cancer chances, but rapidly begins the initiation and proliferation of cancer cells. Extra body fat leads to insulin resistance and increased levels of sex hormones. Doctors believed that adipose (fat) tissue was a storage for fat molecules. Now it is known that fatty tissue is an active organ that is responsible for metabolic and endocrine functions of producing hormones, growth factors and signaling more pro-inflammatory cytokines. The altered levels of signaling molecules seems directly involved in cancer initiation and development.

An American Cancer Society 2003 study over sixteen years on almost 900,000 adults looked at data on obesity alone and cancer deaths (not including poor nutrition or lack of exercise). Results from the study, about 20 percent of the overall cancer deaths of Americans were associated with obesity. Obese women and men are 62 to 52 percent respectively were likely to die from cancer than normal weight women and men.

Your first line of defense is to ease your chronic Inflammation is to cut out processed foods of the Standard American Diet (SAD) which will bring you a slimmer waistline and less immune cells releasing more inflammatory chemicals with recognizable whole food nutrition. This step will make a huge difference in easing inflammation and preventing cancer by doing this alone.

References:

"Obesity in the United States: Public Perceptions," the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research ( www.apnorc.org ), 8/6/13.

"Overweight, obesity, and mortality from cancer in a prospectively studied cohort of U.S. adults." N Engl J Med. 2003; 348(17)): 1,625-1,638.

"Obesity and cancer: the role of dysfunctional adipose tissue." Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2009;18 (10):2569-78.