It’s no secret that age is a massive risk factor for cancer. This is why one should not worry about battling cancer until he or she is already 60 or 70 years old — in the meantime, one could focus on fending off other health concerns that commonly affect young adults such as anxiety, depression, type 2 diabetes.
Unfortunately, health authorities say that these days more and more young adults are in fact diagnosed with certain types of cancer. If truth be told, a study said that the younger the person, the more common the cancer.
The said study, which was recently published in the Lancet Public Health, investigated state registries on people aged 25 to 84 years old — from 1995 to 2014, they came across over 14 million cases of cancer for the 30 different types of cancer known to man.
What they found out was surprising: many young adults were suffering from certain types of cancer that can be linked to a certain problem, and that’s none other than obesity.
So in other words, it’s clear that the reason why a growing number of young adults are suffering from cancer is obesity, which is regarded as a risk factor for so many different types of cancer. Experts say that there are 12 types of cancer that can be blamed on being obese.
Experts discovered that 6 out of 12 types of cancer linked to being obese are being seen in a lot of individuals who are below 50 years of age — pancreatic, gallbladder, colorectal, kidney and uterine cancer, and also multiple myeloma, a rare form of cancer which is characterized by the accumulation of cancer cells in the bone marrow.
The other 6 of those 12 types of cancer are thyroid, esophageal, stomach, liver, uterine and breast cancer.
According to health authorities, one of the things that make obesity a risk factor for so many types of cancer is the fact that it encourages cancer cells to develop and multiply uncontrollably — excess fat cells can in fact produce hormones, thus causing a disruption of normal balance of hormones within.
What’s more, obesity is linked to the development of gallstones and diabetes, both of which are associated with cancer.
The eating habits of individuals who are obese can be blamed as well — a diet that’s very low in fresh fruits and vegetables and extremely high in red meat and processed food products is something that can considerably increase one’s risk of cancer. And once poor eating habit leads to obesity, the odds become even more staggering.
Because it’s evident that obesity is the reason why more and more young adults these days have cancer, the importance of maintaining an ideal weight as well as eating and living healthily cannot be stressed enough by the experts.
Of course this does not mean that having an ideal weight can keep cancer at bay, including most especially in younger adults. There are many other risk factors out there that should be dodged in order to considerably lower a person’s risk of dealing with cancer one day in the future. A risk factor for cancer is anything that can increase one’s chance of suffering from cancer. Some examples of them are cigarette smoking, excessive consumption of alcohol, getting too much sun, and exposure to radiation or carcinogens — substances that can cause cancer.
Then there are also risk factors for cancer that cannot be avoided or changed, such as age, gender and a family history of the deadly disease.
Do you have young family members and friends who are obese? Let them know that it’s a good idea for them to shed off those excess pounds by minding what they put in their mouths and exercising on a regular basis simply by sharing this article on your various social media sites — the information above could help keep them free of cancer!
