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 Rates for six of 12 cancers related to obesity have been increasing
in successive generations of young adults, with the sharpest
increases in the youngest age groups, researchers report in The
Lancet Public Health.
The new study may serve as a warning that if the obesity epidemic
continues, there could be an explosion of these fat-sensitive
cancers in the years to come, said the study's senior author, Dr.
Ahmedin Jemal, scientific vice president of surveillance and health
services research at the American Cancer Society.
"This finding signals an increased burden of obesity-related cancers
in older adults in the future and calls for actions to mitigate this
burden," he said in an email.
The researchers analyzed data from a central database of state
cancer registries, focusing on new diagnoses between 1995-2014 of 30
types of cancer, 12 of which are associated with excess weight. They
had complete data from 25 states that represent about two thirds of
the U.S. population.
In that 20-year period, there were about 14.7 million new cases of
the 30 cancers. For at least eight cancers, including
smoking-related and HIV-associated cancers, the incidence rates
dropped.
But for six of the 12 obesity-related cancers - colorectal,
endometrial, gallbladder, kidney, pancreas and multiple myeloma -
there was a steady increase in incidence over the years, with larger
increases in younger adults.
The annual rise in new cases of kidney cancer, for example, was 6.23
percent among people aged 25-29, but about 3 percent in the 45-49
age group. Similarly, pancreatic cancer incidence rose 4.3 percent
each year for 25-to-29-year-olds but less than 1 percent annually
among people aged 45-49.
Overall, rates of colorectal, endometrial, pancreatic and
gallbladder cancers in millennials - young adults born around 1985 -
were about double the rates seen in people born in the 1950s at the
same age, the researchers note.
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Especially striking was the rising rate of kidney cancers.
Millennials were nearly five times as likely as baby boomers to
develop cancer of the kidneys.
In contrast, for all but two of the 18 non-obesity related cancers,
rates either stabilized or declined in successive younger birth
cohorts.
Jemal hopes the new findings will sound an alarm for doctors
treating young adults. "Less than half of primary care physicians
regularly assess body mass index despite national screening
recommendations," he said. "Further only a third of patients report
receiving a diagnosis or weight loss counseling."
Public health measures, such as restrictions on advertising of
unhealthy calorie-laden foods, could also help, as well as more
campaigns to promote healthy lifestyle choices, Jemal said.
The cancer-obesity issue "is a really important topic because we've
had an obesity crisis now for a number of decades," said John
Jakicic, a professor and director of the Healthy Lifestyle Institute
at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. "At some point we
started to see that diabetes was tracking with obesity, what we're
seeing now is something similar with respect to certain cancers."
Cancer prevention will most likely involve "prevention of other
things that might precipitate cancer," said Jakicic, who wasn't
involved in the study. And while we don't yet know exactly how
obesity may be driving up cancer rates, it's "critically important"
to see observational studies that show an association between the
two, he noted.
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2DRtGKO The Lancet Public Health, online
February 4, 2019.
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