030425 - Study confirms link between obesity and cancer

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Encouraging Americans to shed their excess weight could prevent some 90,000 cancer deaths a year, a study found. 

The 16-year study of 900,000 men and women for the American Cancer Society (news - web sites) showed that excess weight and obesity accounted for 14 percent of all cancer deaths in men and 20 percent in women. The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine (news - web sites). 

"As a society, we have not really acknowledged the contribution of obesity to chronic disease in general and cancer in particular, said Eugenia Calle, director of analytic epidemiology at the American Cancer Society and lead author of the study. 

"We are not taking it seriously enough to turn it around. We are not acting on it." 

The study focused on 404,576 men and 495,477 women, of whom 57,145 died of cancer. The researchers found that the heaviest members of the group were those with the highest risk of dying of cancer, showing that weight played a greater role in cancer formation than previously known. 

"Overweight and obesity has a very broad impact on cancer across most cancer sites," Calle said. "Thats not something thats really in the consciousness of the American people." 

The researchers recommended stronger efforts to promote exercise and a healthy diet among Americans. 

Some 65 percent of the adult US population was overweight or obese in 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites). 

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