The numbers are staggering. It seems that last year, over 124,000 people in Europe alone developed cancer simply because they were overweight. A jump of 77 percent over a 6 year period.

Studies done in Europe seems to show that overweight women have a higher incidence of developing cancer. This study went on to reveal that central European countries were recording higher numbers of new cases of cancer on account of being fat as compared to the rest of Europe.

The most common cancers linked to excess body weight were endometrial, breast and colorectal cancers. A leading researcher from the British University at Cardiff speaking at the ECCO-ESMO European Cancer Congress held in Berlin recently, was quoted as saying “It is possible that obesity may become the biggest attributable cause of cancer in women within the next decade”

They researchers used data from the WHO and the International Agency for Research on Cancer for their research and based it on WHO definitions, classing overweight as having a body mass index (BMI) between 25 and 30, and obese as having a BMI of 30 or more. From an estimate of 70,000 cases of cancer that were attributed to obesity in 2002, their projections show that the number has increased to 124,000.

As for men, the figures were much less at 3.2percent of new cancer cases as compared to women who recorded 8.6

Obesity has long been known to raise the risk of cancer, and the evidence continues to mount. In June 2009, a Swedish study noted that women who had weight-loss surgery were 42 percent less likely to develop cancer during a 10-year study.

The researchers went on to say “In the face of an unabating obesity epidemic, and apparent failure of public health policies to control weight gain, there is a need to look at alternative strategies, including pharmacological approaches”.

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