Cancer: World Cancer Research Fund poll displays ill-informed public on cancer issues
By Lucy Quinton
Obesity could heighten the risk of contracting pancreatic cancer by as much as 50%, a recent study has revealed.
According to the research, published in Cancer Research and conducted at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, patients who had low blood levels of a protein called insulin-like growth factor binding protein-1, which has been linked to obesity, were around twice as likely to develop pancreatic cancer.
Dr Brian Wolpin, attending physician at the institute and lead author of the study, said that lower levels of the protein had been linked with increased risk of colorectal and endometrial cancer.
A poll compiled by the World Cancer Research Fund showed 46% of people were unaware of the connection between eating unhealthily and cancer. The poll surveyed 2,000 adults and 53% did not know being overweight was a factor that could cause cancer, while only 35% knew drinking alcohol was linked to certain forms of cancer.
Commenting on the findings, Professor Karol Sikora, medical director at CancerPartnersUK, said: "Being overweight on its own does not raise the risk of cancer. It's the lifestyle associated with it that does. Smoking, poor diet, low vegetable and fruit intake, lack of exercise are all associated with both obesity and cancer. The two diseases that make the biggest difference are breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men, mainly because they are so common."
He added that alcohol consumption, again, did not in itself result in cancer but it was part of a bigger picture where excessive use was associated with an unhealthy lifestyle choice.
Additionally, the research showed only 33% of those polled knew that having a healthy and active lifestyle could help reduce the risk of cancer, though people aged 35 to 44 were most aware of cancer-contributing factors.
This news came at the same time as researchers at Umeå University in Sweden, published an article in the International Journal of Cancer, showing that cancer was much less likely to develop in people who are insulin resistant but were more likely to develop an aggressive form of the disease likely to spread to other parts of the body.
Every year, nearly 35,000 cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed in the UK - about one in eight of all cases of cancer. The disease causes 10,000 deaths in the UK each year.
