Obesity & Cancer

The International Agency for Research on Cancer has deemed the evidence of a causal link between obesity and cancers of the colon, female breast (postmenopausal), endometrium, kidney (renal cell), and esophagus as "sufficient." Large prospective studies show a significant association between obesity and a number of different cancers (adenocarcinomas). These results, together with the general upward trajectory of obesity across the globe, point to the possibility that excessive eating is the non-smoking population's leading preventable cause of cancer. Because there are so few obese individuals who are able to successfully reduce their weight over the long term, there is no concrete information about the influence that weight reduction has on the risk of cancer. We estimate that overweight and obesity are currently responsible for one in seven cancer deaths in males and one in five cancer deaths in women in the United States. This is based on the assumption that the association between obesity and cancer mortality is totally causal.