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?

[LapsedTwentysomething]

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.

frumpet
Agreed. My mum had breast cancer and when I looked into the risk factors for breast cancer Age was the biggest one. That is one of the reasons why cancer is more prevelent now, because on average we are living longer.

Very true. However I do find it alarming that cancers are on the rise amongst young people.

We know diet is a factor, we know age is a factor but what I would like to see is more research in to other areas.

I sat through a presentation from cancer research a few years ago. They said that whilst at the moment it is 1 in 3 that will get cancer in their lifetime soon it will be 1 in 2. So shocking. They said even taking in to account the age factor, cancer is still increasing at alarming rates.

Surely those who die earlier are less of a drain on public money, they might cost a bit while they are alive but in the long run not as much as people who linger on for donkey's years.

My body is mine to do with as I please, if I want to be a couch potato or a health freak I ought to be free to make the choice.

Obviously all the anecdotes about slim people who have cancer are irrelevant and besides the point if the research is correct.

Isn't that just stating the obvious Issy?

trazzletoes . What bizarre and misinformed (not to mention hurtful) things for friends to say.

Interesting quotes which is my view too:

"J.A. Urquhart, a physician who practiced medicine in Northern Canada in the early 1900?s, described in detail the health and lifestyle of the Inuit people that he lived alongside for seven years. These hunter-gatherers still followed a near identical caveman diet. 65-100% of their diet was made up of fat and protein from wild animals, fish, and whale blubber. He practiced medicine with the same equipment, imaging, and operating rooms as his contemporaries in the first world, therefore he could diagnose cancer with an accuracy comparable to Western medicine. Yet, when describing his encounter with cancer in the Eskimo people he states:

“First, as regards cancer, I have not in my seven years’ experience in the north seen a single case of malignancy in either Eskimo or Indian. It has been suggested to me that perhaps I have not met enough of the older, cancer-age people, or that perhaps the natives do not come to the hospitals as readily as in other parts of Canada. To this I may reply that my practice takes in amongst the tribes very intimately, and I frequently have to live in their campments while making my patrols among them. I therefore meet all types and ages. As for the hospitals, the natives appreciate them to the utmost and use them freely. It is for someone else to explain this absence of cancer amongst these people.”1 

His treatment of all ages, including the elderly, punches holes in the theory that the Eskimos were simply not living long enough to get cancer.

In the early 1900s, as English missionaries set out to spread Christianity to these “third-world” peoples, they took meticulous records. Other expeditions, including physicians, recorded the medical and physiologic data from several hunter gathers in existence. In fact, Dr. F. P. Fouché, who was a surgeon stationed in Africa, was quoted in the British Medical Journal in 1923:

“For six and a half years I was District Surgeon in the Orange Free State. The district in which I practised had a native population of 14,000, the large majority of the Basuto race. During the whole of that period I never saw a single case of gastric or duodenal ulcer, colitis, appendicitis, or cancer in any form, in a native, although these diseases were frequently seen amongst the white or European population.”2

www.cavemandoctor.com/2011/11/29/were-cavemen-cancer-free/

Genetic factors?

You probably have a point but I'm not sure it's one worth making. Most overweight people believe that they are putting their healthy at risk and most are trying or would love to try to change things. Posts like this will only make people feel bad.

Plus it's singling out one of many things that can cause cancer and ignoring the many genetic and random shit luck factors which also cause it.

Anecdotes don't really help or prove things one way or the other either.
Eg -
my anecdote 1 - my slim, fit, healthy Dad died of leukaemia at 52 but my morbidly obese, completely sedentary and non fruit/veg eating Mum is alive and well.

my anecdote 2 - my overweight, smoking, heavy drinking, type 2 diabetic, poor diet eating friend died of liver cancer at 63 and his slim, healthy, active, non smoking, moderate drinking wife is alive and well.

Two reverse scenarios - suggests that they both mean precisely nothing right?

public health presentation mentions plenty fatal cancers among the Inuit in the early 1900s.

Just saying.

Cancer has increased a lot, admittedly. Other lifestyle diseases haven't really changed as mortality causes in last 100 yrs. & Lifespans are still 10 yrs below those in UK.

Thanks. Yes. I tell myself they mean well. I'm personally generally very good at putting my foot in it, so I try and tell myself that's just it. How on earth you can think a 3 year old has depression or that that has caused cancer really baffles me. And as if any parent of a child with cancer hasn't questioned themselves a million times about what on earth they could have done differently.

Were cavemen cancer free?

No. The fossil record tells us that. The oldest documented case is in a Neanderthal thought to live 120,000 years ago.

Did they have lower rates of cancer than in western populations today? We'll never know but almost certainly yes. For a variety of reasons that almost certainly have nothing to do with wheat. Not least because a combination being born, giving birth, animal predators, viruses and bacteria ensured that they rarely reached the age of 40. And we do know that ageing is a huge risk factor for getting cancer.

Well ah dunno bout you but ah sure ain't descended from them thar neanderthals!

If it was a seasy as 'just getting on with it' , there would be no overweight people

You probably are, actually @Suzannewaplan.

My DSF had meat with every single meal every single day. For him life wasn't worth living without his meat. He was astonished that anyone would want to be vegetarian/vegan and regularly told DH and I to "eat some bloody meat" in a jokey tone but half serious. He had a massive heart attack and died aged 50. It was directly linked to his fatty diet of course but I think if he'd had to quit it he'd rather be dead.

I'm sorry to hear that. But fat doesn't cause heart attacks. Have you seen how much fat the French eat; they have very low levels of heart disease. Fat eaten with large quantities of carbs/sugar is a problem, fat alone isn't. I now eat meat everyday, my cholesterol, triglycerides and blood sugars are excellent.

I hate all the emphasis on weight. There are plenty of thin people out there with shit diets and terrible health, or people who will have terrible health as they start to age. I wish we'd switch to talking about health rather than weight.

I'm sorry to hear that. But fat doesn't cause heart attacks. Have you seen how much fat the French eat; they have very low levels of heart disease. Fat eaten with large quantities of carbs/sugar is a problem, fat alone isn't. I now eat meat everyday, my cholesterol, triglycerides and blood sugars are excellent.

I might be being stupid here so you're going to need to explain this to me. I get the French paradox i.e. diet high in saturated animal fats but lower levels of heart disease than would be expected compared to other countries. But you seem to be attributing high levels of ischaemic heart disease to eating animal fats alongside high levels of carbs/sugar. How does that fit with the French paradox? Because I don't think the French diet is particularly low in carbs/sugar. It's low in trans fats but not carbs.

The latest research as most people now know shows that good fats do not cause heart problems. The state for 40 years in the UK and US has said go low fat. The result has been people moved massively to carbs and are fatter and unhealthier than ever. It is one of the worst public health mistakes ever and only just coming to light. In fact if you want to be thinner and healthy most of us now know the answer is eat good animal fats (see countless mumsnet health threads).

Here is a TED talk about why diets generally don't work and make you fatter in the long run. It also points out that obese people can reduce their risk of an early death to the same as people who have never been fat by eating more veg, exercising 3 times a week, not smoking and drinking in moderation. (Contrary to popular belief, doing this will not make most people substantially thinner in the long term.)

www.ted.com/talks/sandra_aamodt_why_dieting_doesn_t_usually_work

I have struggled with my weight all my adult life. I have, however, always tried to eat mindfully and cultivate the four healthy habits. I walk 8 miles a day, swim and bike ride on top of that, have a normal heart rate, normal blood pressure and no conditions often blamed on obesity such as diabetes or PCOS.

None of this means I won't get cancer, and if I had none of those habits and got cancer that would not make it my fault.

OP, if you want to live a healthy life that's up to you and if you think losing weight is possible for you then have at it and good luck, but talking about "duties" is a bit like blaming people for being ill and it's not nice.

I think the trouble is that a lot of people are overweight
I have an increased risk of a particular cancer because I have a specific auto immune disorder. I am also overweight.
I would be more likely to get that specific cancer because of my auto immune disorder

Someone who drinks heavily and becomes overweight and develops liver cancer, is the risk more to do with drinking to excess/liver disease or being overweight due to excess calories through drinking too much?

I'm not a medic, obviously!, I am just pondering

On a positive note, I would like to lose weight too! I find it very difficult to maintain a loss

Are you referring to Chowdhury et al's paper? Pre or post correction? Even before the correction the best they could say was that there was no evidence to support the current guidelines, but there wasn't any evidence they were wrong either and more research was needed.

Post correction there was evidence to support the idea that switching from saturated fats to polyunsaturated fats did result in a decrease in the occurrence of cardiovascular disease.

It's probably worth noting that the authors of the paper do not really agree with either your or the media's interpretation that this paper shows that good animal fats do not cause heart disease?