Long observed and recently studied, there is a clear link between excess body fat and certain cancers, well described in this LA Times article by Sam Apple.
He references an article from the New England Journal of Medicine from 2016 which links a total of thirteen cancers with excess body fat: cancer of the colon, thyroid, ovary, uterus, pancreas, endometrium and post-menopausal breast cancer. Not every case of each cancer requires obesity, but obesity markedly increases your risk for developing those cancers.
Bottom line is that, according to the Center for Disease Control, 40% of all cancers are related to excessive body fat.
Background: there are really two types, perhaps really two stages of obesity. Remember that you store fat under the influence of insulin: eat more carbs than you need, raise your levels of insulin, insulin stores the fat for use “tomorrow.” The least harmful (for insulin resistance, diabetes, heart disease and cancer) is accumulation of subcutaneous fat, fat you can grab—love handles! Your body is limited in its subcutaneous fat possibilities and if you keep eating carbs, your body will next store fat in that large reservoir inside your abdomen, including inside your liver: visceral fat. Visceral fat is much more risky for every disease I’ve mentioned, and visceral fat is associated with higher levels of insulin and insulin resistance.
You know how pictures are worth a thousand words? Two pictures to comment on: Sam Apple shows a person measuring their waist circumference... if your waist circumference is more than half your height, you have excessive visceral fat. And on this page, I have chosen an illustration of some of the many forms in which sugar appears: they are all hazardous in excess, no matter how natural, bee-made, or unprocessed they are!
What about you, have you made the connection between dietary sugar and cancer? How much sugar do you eat?
