Health24.com | These are the real culprits behind 800 000 cases of cancer

Posted on 29/11/2017 by Boris Clair

Nearly 6% of new cancers diagnosed worldwide in 2012 – some 800 000 cases – were caused by diabetes and excess weight, according to a study.

Among the 12 types of cancer examined, the percentage of cases chalked up to these factors was as high as a third, researchers reported in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, a leading medical journal.

Link between cancer and diabetes

Cancers stemming from diabetes and obesity combined was almost twice as common among women than men, they found.

And of the two cancer-causing agents, being overweight or obese – above 25 on the body-mass index, or BMI – was responsible for twice as many cancers as diabetes.

The conditions, in reality, are often found together, as obesity is itself a leading risk factor for diabetes.

“While obesity has been associated with cancer for some time, the link between diabetes and cancer has only been established quite recently,” said lead author Jonathan Pearson-Stuttard, a clinical research fellow at Imperial College London’s Faculty of Medicine.

“Our study shows that diabetes – either on its own or combined with being overweight – is responsible for hundreds of thousands of cancer cases each year across the world.”

A surge in both conditions over the last four decades has made the tally significantly worse, the study showed.

Check your BMI

The global increase in diabetes between 1980 and 2002 accounted for a quarter of the 800 000 cases, while the obesity epidemic over the same period resulted in an additional 30% of cases.

On current trends, the share of cancers attributable to the two conditions will increase by 30% for women and 20% for men in less than 20 years, the researchers warned.

“In the past, smoking was by far the major risk factor for cancer, but now healthcare professionals should also be aware that patients who have diabetes or are overweight also have an increased risk,” Pearson-Stuttard, said.

For men, obesity and diabetes accounted for a more than 40% of liver cancers, while for women they were responsible for a third of uterine cancers, and nearly as many cases of breast cancer.

The threshold for obesity is a BMI – one’s weight in kilos divided by one’s height (in centimetres) squared – of 30.

Persons with a BMI of 25 to 29.9 are considered to be overweight.

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Health24.com | 3 gross things that happen to your face when you drink and smoke

Posted on 29/11/2017 by Boris Clair

The health effects of too much drinking and smoking are major. Everything from cancer to heart disease to stroke have been linked to those bad habits.

If that’s not enough to make you quit, well, we’ll appeal to your vanity instead: Excessive drinking and smoking can make you look way older than you really are, according to new research published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

In the study, researchers quizzed more than 11 000 people on their smoking and drinking habits, and then had medical pros perform physical exams on them over the course of 12 years.

They were looking for four specific, visible signs of ageing: earlobe creases, arcus corneae, (a greyish ring around the corneas in your eye), xanthelasmata (yellowish plaques on your eyelids) and male pattern baldness.

The results? The more cigs guys smoked – and the more years they lit up for – the more likely they were to develop three of those visible signs, including grey rings around their corneas, the creases on their earlobes and the plaques on their eyelids.

There was no consistent link between drinking and smoking and male pattern baldness, probably because your genetic predisposition and male hormone levels play a greater role in that, the researchers say.

In fact, men who smoked the most had more than double the odds of getting the yellowish plaques above their peepers than non-smokers did.

Guys who were heavy drinkers – meaning they drank more than 35 drinks a week – were 35% more likely to develop the grey rings in their eyes than those who drank fewer than seven.

Those who drank 21 to 28 drinks a week were also 26% more likely to get earlobe creases than those who limited their booze to seven drinks a week. So should you worry about these signs – or are they only skin deep?

“These signs have no health implications in themselves – just like wrinkles, they are not harmful,” says study author Dr Janne S Tolstrup. “The reason we call them ageing signs is not because of their cosmetic appearance, but because other research has shown that early appearance of the signs is associated with diseases such as cardiovascular disease, and also mortality.”

Basically, these outward signs might be telling you something’s not quite right in your body.

Take the yellowish plaques above your eyes, for instance. These are actually cholesterol deposits, Dr Tolstrup says – and they likely signal that your body’s cholesterol metabolism is off.

Read more: 5 ways to stop smoking

As a result, you might be more likely to experience atherosclerosis, or the build-up of plaque in your arteries. And that, of course, can raise your risk of heart attack or stroke.

Not only are your bad habits ageing you on the outside, but they’re also doing some serious damage to your health on the inside, too.

So make this the year you cut back on drinking and stop smoking for good.

^{This article was originally published on www.menshealth.com}

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