From Your Health Journal…..”A great article today from the Santa Monica Mirror about obesity and cancer by Steve Mittelman, MD, PhD – who explains an important message in his article. As discussed here a few weeks ago, losing weight always tops the charts as a new year’s resolution. Why, probably because most of us want to remain healthy, reduce the risks of disease associated with weight gain, and improve our own self esteem. But, cancer has been associated with obesity, which makes losing weight another important goal to accomplish. Most people don’t realize that obesity causes cancer, and that obesity can decrease your odds of successfully fighting the disease if you get it. Research has shown that obese people have an increased risk of developing cancer, and those that do, have a worse prognosis than lean people who get the disease. Please, visit the Santa Monica Mirror (link provided below) to read the complete article. It is an important message to learn.”

From the article…..

Weight loss is typically a top New Year’s resolution. We want to get into good shape to fit into nice clothes and feel and look our best. It is well known that a better diet and exercise help us lose weight and fend off diseases like diabetes and heart disease.

There’s another disease that should make weight loss not only a New Year’s resolution, but a year-round priority for both children and adults: cancer.

Most people don’t realize that obesity causes cancer, and that obesity can decrease your odds of successfully fighting the disease if you get it. I recently spoke to a group of West Los Angeles and Santa Monica residents about obesity during a Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Ambassadors Speakers Series event at The Beach Club in Santa Monica. The Ambassador’s are a community of dedicated Children’s Hospital supporters and they had some important questions about the issue: How does body weight affect the development of cancer? Do obese people have a worse prognosis than lean patients and how can parents influence their kids to eat right and exercise to battle weight gain? Together, these effects translate into an approximately 50% increased risk of dying from cancer for obese people. Overall, about 20% of all cancers in the United States can be attributed to obesity. This not only affects adults, but children as well.

Body Weight And The Impact On Cancer

In the past decade, the medical research community began to identify the effects body weight can have on cancer. We found that obese people have an increased risk of developing cancer, and those that do, have a worse prognosis than lean people who get the disease. Together, these effects translate into an approximately 50% increased risk of dying from cancer for obese people. Overall, about 20% of all cancers in the United States can be attributed to obesity. This frightening public health concern is one that deserves more attention and research!

At Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, a team led by Anna Butturini, MD, demonstrated that obesity can also affect kids with cancer. They found that obese kids diagnosed with a blood cancer called acute lymphoblastic leukemia had a lower chance of their disease being cured by chemotherapy than lean kids. This finding is particularly chilling considering the fact that more than one in three children in the Los Angeles area is overweight or obese, and leukemia is the most common cancer in children. For these reasons, I began to study how obesity affects childhood leukemia in my lab at Children’s Hospital, and hopefully, determine how to reverse this effect.

Obesity Can Accelerate Leukemia

An obesity researcher and pediatric endocrinologist by training, I realized that obesity is not a simple disease, but represents a composite of a number of physical, physiologic, social, behavioral, genetic, and psychological effects. This makes it difficult to distinguish whether obesity has a direct effect on leukemia in kids, or perhaps is associated with another risk factor that might explain this connection. For example, people who are genetically predisposed to develop obesity might also be predisposed to develop a worse type of leukemia. However, using preclinical models, I was able to demonstrate that obesity itself directly accelerates the progression of leukemia and impairs the ability of chemotherapy to cure it.

To read the full article…..Click here