Does excessive body fat increase your risk of cancer? It appears the answer is yes
Body fat has been shown to directly cause cancer via a protein released by fat
A new Michigan State University study now offers new details showing that a certain protein released from fat in the body can cause a non-cancerous cell to turn into a cancerous one.
This indicates a direct casual relationship between body fat and cancer risk. This would seem to indicate that keeping body fat percentages in a low to normal range is important for lowering the risk of cancer. The way to keep body fat percentage within a normal range is to first track body fat percentage by the body weight scale, and to measure calories using a nutritional scale. The combination of using a body weight and nutritional scale can provide the feedback loop necessary to help a person determine their total caloric needs to meet their body fat percentage goals taking into account their activity level.
As stated in a previous post there is also a device which can be purchased (indirect calorimetry) such as the Breezing device to determine with gold standard medical precision the metabolic rate of the user. This information would allow anyone with any level of experience to know precisely how many calories they need to keep their body fat in the low normal range statistically.
The result of this study seems to indicate that BMI is medically useless. BMI doesn't determine or explain body composition which is the ratio of muscle, fat, bone, water. A body weight scale should always reveal body composition and not just weight, as weight and BMI are medically useless as there isn't any direct casual relationship that I know of between BMI or weight and cancer, or any disease. There is a direct casual relationship between having a high body fat percentage and cancer risk though. Fat around the belly or fat between the organs known as visceral fat is also known to be a risk factor for metabolic syndrome and may contribute to the development of diabetes.
Low normal body fat in my opinion for a male is 15% or less while for a female it's 20% or less, but this level has not been established by evidence based methods so the exact number representing low normal isn't certain other than to be on the low end of the normal for the typical US citizen. Note: It is not normal to find a direct casual relationship in a study like this so when we can see there is a direct casual relationship then we can actually do something about it.
References
Michigan State University. (2017, August 24). This is how belly fat could increase your cancer risk. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 25, 2017 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170824101756.htm
D Chakraborty, V Benham, B Bullard, T Kearney, H C Hsia, D Gibbon, E Y Demireva, S Y Lunt, J J Bernard. Fibroblast growth factor receptor is a mechanistic link between visceral adiposity and cancer. Oncogene, 2017; DOI: 10.1038/onc.2017.278
There are many health problems related to having too much body fat. Diabetes and high blood pressure to name a couple.
All the more reason to eat a very low carb diet. It's been show to reverse metabolic syndrome and T2D.
Thanks for sharing this study.
I've looked into the low carb thing. Low carb does not reverse metabolic syndrome but it does offer an effective way to reduce A1c which is a way to control blood sugar in diabetics. There has not been found a way which conclusively reverses metabolic syndrome but we do know if a person has too much body fat it will worsen.
Low carb isn't likely to be effective unless it's also low calorie is my point. If you think I'm wrong cite your source showing low carb alone reverse metabolic syndrome.
Perhaps I used the wrong word. Many studies have concluded that eating a low-carb diet "improves" metabolic syndrome. My intention was not to start a debate, but to thank you for sharing the study.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,18&qsp=1&q=metabolic+syndrome+carbohydrate+restriction
Okay on that I can agree.
Another two big factors are a sedentary lifestyle and lack of exposure to the sun. We need sun light for our bodies to create Vitamin D.
Great post..
Vitamin D. Consider if you have dark skin you will have to supplement vitamin D because sun might not be good enough. This might actually explain some of the increased disease risks faced by darker skinned people but maybe not all of it. As far as the sedentary lifestyle, as a person ages they lose muscle mass every year so if you do not continue to build muscle you will become frail and weak in old age.
Of course there is testosterone replacement therapy or steroids but it's not a guarantee that your doctor will prescribe it as you become old.
I agree. You also have a decrease in stomach acid as you age. Adding a few fresh juices into your daily diet can help increase nutrient uptake in the body. And by juices I mean juicing fresh vegetable and fruit at home with a high quality juicing machine.
Naturally, larger people have a greater number of cells in their body.
The more cells in your body, the greater the likelihood that one of those cells will mutate and become cancerous. This is not so mysterious, yes?
No amount of Tumblr posts is going to convince your organs that big is beautiful
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