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The Battalion
Page 7A • Thursday, April 24, 2003
Study links obesity and cancer
NEWS IN BRIEF
By Janet McConnaughey
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Losing weight could pre-
ent one of every six cancer
leaths in the United States —
nore than 90,000 each year,
iccording to a sweeping study
hat experts say links fat and
ancer more convincingly than
ver before.
Researchers spent 16 years
valuating 900,000 people who
kvere cancer-free when the
tudy began in 1982. They
oncluded that excess weight
nay account for 14 percent of
ill cancer deaths in men and
!0 percent of those in women.
The study was big enough
:oback up a fat connection not
mly in cancers where it has
teen known for some time, but
n eight where it hadn’t been
videly documented, lead
esearcher Eugenia Calle said.
Calle, whose study is in
Thursday’s New England
toumal of Medicine, said she
vas surprised the link “really
vas the rule more than the
xception.”
A commentary said the
irmfttudv is 10 times greater than
he largest previous research
tnthe topic. Top researchers in
toth cancer and obesity said
g rather than on tea he research virtually proves
hey are linked.
“Because of the magnitude
tnd strength of the study, it’s
irrefutable,” said Dr. Donna
Ryan, head of clinical research
at the Pennington Biomedical
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Dr. Robert Mayer of
Harvard Medical School and
the Dana Farber Cancer
Institute in Boston said it’s not
certain whether one in five, six
or seven cancers might be pre
vented or better treated if peo
ple lost weight.
“What’s clear is that large
studies of this sort — and this
is the biggest and best to date
— show very clearly this is a
major health problem in this
country,” said Mayer, speaking
for the American Society of
Clinical Oncology.
The study by American
Cancer Society relied on the
body mass index using heights
and weights reported by study
participants. For instance, a 5-
foot-11 person who weighs
175 pounds would have a BMI
of 24.4, near the top of the nor
mal range. A 5-foot-3, 175-
pounder would be obese, with
a BMI of 31.
For the study, a BMI of 18.5
to 24.9 was considered normal.
Those who were overweight
(25 to 29.9) or obese (30 or
over) were all compared to the
normal group, and statistical
analysis was used to adjust for
smoking and other risk factors.
Earlier studies have found
that excess weight contributes
to cancers of the breast and
uterus, colon and rectum, kid
ney, esophagus and gall blad
der. This one also linked it to
cancers of the cervix and
ovary, multiple myeloma, non-
Hodgkins lymphoma, pan
creas, liver, and, in men, the
stomach and prostate.
The researchers found no
link between fat and brain,
skin and bladder qancers.
Obesity increases
cancer death risk
Obesity may be linked to one in
six cancer deaths, a new study
says. The study used body mass
index, which measures weight
against height. For the study, a
BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 was
considered normal, and an index
score of 30 or over was
considered obese.
Percent increase in death
rates from all cancers based
on body mass index score
Men
Women
70 percent
60
50
40
30
20
30.0-34.9 35.0-39.9
40 or
greater
Body Mass Index (BMI)
is equal to:
Weight (pounds)
Height (inches) 2
x 703
SOURCE: New England Journal of
Medicine
AP
There are two big reasons
the overall link is stronger in
women than in men, Calle
said.
“More women are obese,”
she said. “And also, breast
cancer plays a pretty big role
here. That’s obviously one of
the most common cancers.”
Too much body fat can
influence cancer and cancer
mortality a number of ways. It
increases the amount of estro
gen in the blood, increasing
the risk of cancers of the
female reproductive system. It
increases the risk of acid reflux,
which can cause cancer of the
esophagus. It raises levels of
insulin, prompting the body to
create a hormone which causes
cells to multiply.
Obesity also makes cancer
harder to diagnose and treat. It’s
harder to see or feel lumps and
bumps, and some patients don’t
fit into CAT scanners, Mayer
said.
They also may avoid regular
doctor’s visits, “possibly
because of their appearance or
they just shy away from physi
cians,” he said.
“The morbidly obese are
harder to operate on, harder to
plan radiation therapy for —
often, they don’t even fit into a
radiation therapy machine,”
Mayer said. He said it also is
hard to decide the right
chemotherapy dose for the
obese, because fat tissue some
times absorbs the chemicals
used in treatment.
Both Ryan and Calle said
attitudes must change about
weight the way they did about
smoking. They said communi
ties, workplaces, schools and
transportation all need to change
to make it easier both to eat right
and exercise.
“We’ve developed a culture
where you have to work really
hard to eat right and exercise,”
Calle said. “We’re kind of stack
ing the deck against ourselves.
“Until we accept that it is a
bigger problem than one of indi
vidual discipline, we probably
won’t be too successful in turn
ing it around.”
Mosquito disease
may help slow
spread of West Nile
WASHINGTON (AP) - A dis
ease that kills mosquitoes
could be one way to slow the
spread of West Nile virus, the
Agriculture Department says.
Jim Becnel, a scientist with
the department's Agricultural
Research Service, said
Wednesday that he and a team
of researchers have come up
with a new method to kill mos
quitoes by infecting them with
an illness called baculovirus. It
works only on mosquitoes.
"It's kind of a killer for a
killer," he said.
The department wants com
panies to make mosquito
killing sprays from baculovirus
and put them on the market.
They believe it could kill mos
quitoes potentially carrying
West Nile virus, an illness that
killed 284 people and sick
ened 4,156 in the United
States last year.
The agency got a patent on
baculovirus in February, but it's
up to manufacturers to make
commercial sprays because
federal law prohibits the gov
ernment from doing so.
Becnel said scientists dis
covered the mosquito-killing
baculovirus in 1997 but took
years to understand how it
is transmitted.
FCC doubles
airwaves available
for emergency use
WASHINGTON (AP) -
Federal regulators doubled
the airwaves available for
emergency and public safety
workers Wednesday, giving a
boost to police seeking better
crisis communications and
firefighters wanting to send
live feed video from inside
burning buildings.
The Federal Communications
Commission voted 5-0 to
allow local and federal safety
agencies to sign up for a
chunk of airwaves set aside
last year for emergency and
homeland security efforts.
Unlike the various slivers of
airwaves space devoted to
public safety in the past, the
new airwaves occupy a single
large area well suited to
broadband applications like
live video.
"The big lesson of Sept. 11
was you have all of these peo
ple showing up at a spot
because of a national disaster
and their devices couldn't
communicate," said John
Muleta, chief of the FCC's
wireless bureau.
Carbon monoxide
concentrations
reduced in West
WASHINGTON (AP) - Once a
far-reaching menace, carbon
monoxide emissions from cars
and pickups are now a stub
born problem mostly in the
West, where weather and ter
rain tend to trap pollution, the
National Academy of Sciences
said Wednesday.
Federal air quality standards
and tailpipe emissions controls
over the past three decades
have reduced concentrations
of the gas, an academy panel
told Congress.
This regulation "has been
one of the greatest success
stories in air pollution control,
reducing the problem, once
widespread, to a few difficult
areas," panel members wrote.
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