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Obesity causes 500,000 cancer cases per year, says WHO
The WHOâs cancer research organization says there are around half a million cancer cases caused by obesity each year, especially in North America
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he WHO's cancer research organization says there are around half a million cancer cases caused by obesity each year, especially in North America.
In a research report published in The Lancet Oncology, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) says that high body mass index (BMI) is now a primary cancer threat and triggered around 481,000 or 3.6 percent of new cancer cases in 2012.
'The number of cancer cases related to obesity and being overweight is predicted to continue to increase globally along with increases in economic development,' IARC director Christopher Wild said in the journal, as quoted by Antara news agency on Wednesday.
He said the finding highlighted a need to help people to maintain a healthy body weight to reduce the risk of suffering from cancer, and to help developing countries to avoid the problem currently being experienced by many developed countries.
The IARC research reveals that North America has the worst obesity levels related to cancer with around 111,000 obesity related cancer cases found in 2012, or around 23 percent of the total number of global cancer cases related to high BMI.
In European countries, obesity was said to be the reason for around 65,000, or 6.5 percent, of all new cancer cases per year.
Although in most Asian countries, the proportion of overweight-related cancer cases is relatively small, it is still significant, IARC says.
China has recorded around 50,000 obesity related cancer cases, or 1.6 percent of total new cancer cases. In Africa, obesity is responsible for around 1.5 percent of new cancer cases.
Researcher Melina Arnold, who led the IARC research, noted that women had been disproportionally affected by obesity related cancer. She said the number of post-menopause breast cancer cases, the most common cancer affecting women in the world, could be reduced by 10 percent by maintaining a normal body weight. (ebf)(+++)
