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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Each 2-2.5 st weight increase linked to cancer risk increase. AIBU to think those of us who can have a duty to lose weight?

147 replies

LapsedTwentysomething · 14/08/2014 09:11

And by that, I mean most of us. I have PCOS am 2.5st above the highest point of my healthy weight range. PCOS makes weight gain spectacularly easy and loss more difficult but I'm also a comfort eater and can address this. I just choose to make excuses.

Link here. This particularly caught my attention: 'each 13-16kg (2-2.5 stone) of extra weight an average adult gained was linked firmly and linearly to a greater risk of six cancers'. My mum was diagnosed with one of the cancers listed at an advanced stage last year. She has never been overweight. What the fuck am I doing to myself / my DCs / DP / the NHS?

AIBU to think this is actually quite stark, and it's imperative that those if us who need to and can lose weight should just Get On With It? I know this stuff isn't new but those links are clearee than ever.

OP posts:
QuintessentiallyQS · 14/08/2014 18:42

Dunno, it is all very individual is it not? My mum was very healthy, ate balanced meals, fresh fruit and veg and fish in abundance. She did not have a sweet tooth and did not eat fatty foods, crisps, biscuits, cakes, etc. She was never over weight, she never smoked, never touched alcohol. She got bone marrow cancer, then alzheimers, and now she she has cancer of the womb.

Delatron · 14/08/2014 18:44

Exactly firesidechat. As a breast cancer sufferer I find suziepra's comment 'most people think their cancer was unavoidable' very insulting and a bit smug.

firesidechat · 14/08/2014 18:49

I know Delatron.

Not only smug and insulting, but wrong.

QuintessentiallyQS · 14/08/2014 18:50

Not sure how my two friends (one now dead) would feel if they were told they were partly to blame for getting breast cancer. Both were very healthy mums in their late 30s when they got cancer. Both had breastfed 3 children. Neither smoked, drank alcohol. Both were slim and enjoyed a healthy lifestyle.

Worse my friend who recently died from lymphoma, he was not enjoying a particularly healthy lifestyle, and was in rehab twice. It is galling to think that people might think his cancer was self inflicted through life style choices.

Greengrow · 14/08/2014 19:39

Most modern diseases are due to lifestyle. Even if you're thin but eat lots of sugar you will be ruining your health. Most people don't want to hear this so no doubt we will continue with 60% if British people over weight and lots of obesity, dementia, diabetes and depression - what I call ODDD - which are all linked to sugar (and therefore to overweight).

Of course cancer is linked to lifestyle, in many cases. People don't like to hear it but that does not mean it is untrue. I eat paleo and only drink water and not surprisingly I am never ill. You tend to reap what you sow in life.

suziepra · 14/08/2014 19:46

A healthy lifestyle isn't something that is as easy as yes or no. Most people think they have a healthy diet, just as most people think they are middle class.

For example there are many links between cancer and wheat. But someome that has semi milk and some god awful nestle cerial with whole grain probably thinks they are being healthy. The human race is being poisened.

And I wasnt just talking about diet, I'm talking about lifestyle. If someone doesn't drink or smoke they can still be very unhealthy.

firesidechat · 14/08/2014 19:48

No link to that research then?

suziepra · 14/08/2014 19:48

Sorry I was meaning to say there are links with cancer and dairy!

firesidechat · 14/08/2014 19:49

So we adopt a niche diet and it all goes away. Right.

maggiethemagpie · 14/08/2014 19:49

Ah, a cancer sufferer bashing thread, instead of a diabetic bashing thread. It's nice to see another group of people being blamed for something they can't control, or where there is a very tenuous link to control.
I actually mean that. Not that it's nice for anyone to be blamed for an illness they developed but it's quite nice, as a diabetic, not to be the group being blamed for obesity for once.

firesidechat · 14/08/2014 19:50

No, the link to 80% of cancers having an identifiable cause.

So there is no link between cancer and wheat?

firesidechat · 14/08/2014 19:52

maggie there have been loads of cancer bashing threads, sadly. I have noticed the diabetic ones too because my mum has diabetes. Really how dare any of us get sick. The disgrace.

Delatron · 14/08/2014 20:00

Cancer and wheat! You can't even get the food type right!

I thoroughly researched the link between dairy and cancer. I asked my oncologist (with a triple first from Cambridge, the leading oncologist in the country) if there was a link and he said no. I do drink organic milk but I eat organic in general.

To reiterate 30% of cancers are lifestyle related. That leaves 70% not related, equating to millions of people! children! health nuts! athletes etc getting cancer due to NO FAULT of their own. You keep spouting your 'you reap what you sow' crap and insult millions of people out there. I hope you are one of the lucky ones as really, there is no magic bullet, diet will only reduce, not eliminate your risk...

suziepra · 14/08/2014 20:09

So anyone with a first from Cambridge is right automatically? I found the China study very interesting.

What's the alternative, lye down do nothing and just accept ever rising degenerative diseases that are not in our control?

MyFairyKing · 14/08/2014 20:10

suziepra do you have any tact at all?!

bauhausfan · 14/08/2014 20:12

I think the China study has been refuted suziepra. (Although I do not eat dairy or eggs as I discovered they bring on my rheumatism - make of that what you will :) )

stinkingbishop · 14/08/2014 20:13

I haven't read the research other than where it's been reported, but I would question whether being obese is a cause, or whether it's more of a correlation. In other words, obese people are more likely to be ill, from various conditions, because obesity itself correlates with poor lifestyle choices. It is less likely that an obese person's diet is flooded with lots of lovely dark veg and fruit. I don't know what the correlation is between obesity and smoking and drinking. Or living in more polluted areas. Or being depressed (which suppresses the body's natural defences). I do know that there is an inverse correlation between weight and wealth; I don't know whether various diseases follow that line too.

In other words, the cancer is 'caused' by the same things that cause the obesity. Not a simple xg of fat leads to a y% rate of cancer.

Losing 2 st, if you're still eating crap and drinking and inhaling poison and living in an unhealthy environment and pissed off about it all would still leave you with the same risk factors.

Or has someone read it and can correct me?

stinkingbishop · 14/08/2014 20:17

Oh and age too. As we age, we put on weight. And as we age, our chance of cancer increases. From what I read the researchers had simply plotted BMI against all UK cancer cases. The only way you could point the finger directly at weight would be to strip out all the other factors above ie if you had 1000 people who all ate healthily, same age, same environment, not depressed, don't drink, don't smoke etc etc, but the 500 who were overweight were more likely to have cancer then, yes, you could theorise that was pure weight.

suziepra · 14/08/2014 20:18

The China study has been criticized but then again the dairy industry and food manufacturer s have very deep pockets...

Anyway this place isn't the right place for this but I would recommend anyone reads it especially the really critical people. :)

Delatron · 14/08/2014 20:18

I think I would trust an oncologist over you suzie, any oncologist! you know, who has years of training. You can't even get your food types right...

I used to be the smug one, sat there munching on broccoli, drinking green tea whilst everyone around me ate crap. Guess who got cancer? Still waiting for that 80% link too...

Delatron · 14/08/2014 20:22

Of course don't lie down and do nothing. Just don't think that eating a healthy diet will protect you...it won't. It will reduce your risk that is all.
There are many, many more factors involved in cancer than diet. Most of which we don't know about. I think this is where the research should be focused.

Do you fancy telling a child who has cancer that it was down to their lifestyle or diet? They haven't been around long enough to lead an unhealthy life.

firesidechat · 14/08/2014 20:31

I despair sometimes and wish I could keep away from the cancer threads. There is always someone insisting that if you eat fermented seaweed under a full moon, then cancer will be cured overnight. (Slight exaggeration, but not much).

I'm willing to trust Delatron's specialist too, over some random poster on here with no stated medial training.

And actually some things aren't in our control suzie. We all have to die of something and unfortunately that something may be cancer or motor neurone disease or some other equally nasty illness.

suziepra · 14/08/2014 20:32

For some children it is down to diet or lifestyle though. Like the high rate of child cancer that people working in illegal gold mines where their mother was exposed to a high level of mecury when she was preg. No one is saying it is pleasent.

I'm not asking you to believe me, I'm saying no one is automatically right.

firesidechat · 14/08/2014 20:33

Cancer Research UK also says that dairy may protect from some cancers.

firesidechat · 14/08/2014 20:37

Working in a gold mine has nothing to do with the diet and lifestyle of the average person on this website or the western world in general. Your arguments have bigger holes than my knitting.