Diabetes and excess weight caused nearly eight lakh new cancer cases diagnosed globally in 2012, a study has found.
The study, published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, found that 5,44,300 of the new cases (3.9 percent) were attributable to high BMI, and 2,80,100 cases attributable to diabetes (2 percent). Overall, 5.6 percent of all cancer in 2012 was attributable to high BMI and diabetes in 2002.
A surge in both conditions over the last four decades has made the tally significantly worse, according to the study.
The study analysed cancer cases reported from 175 countries around the world.
These figures are alarming for India — already the ‘diabetes capital of the world’ and a country that is battling the double burden of obesity and malnutrition.
The global increase in diabetes between 1980 and 2002 accounted for a quarter of the eight lakh cases, while the obesity epidemic over the same period resulted in an additional 30 percent of cases.
Cancers linked to diabetes and high BMI included:
- Liver Cancer: Quarter (24.5%) of the 7.66 lakh new cases
- Endometrial Cancer: 38.4% per cent of the 3.17 lakh new cases
For men, obesity and diabetes accounted for more than 40 percent of liver cancers, while for women they were responsible for a third of uterine cancers, and nearly as many cases of breast cancer, researchers said.
As the prevalence of these cancer risk factors increases, clinical and public health efforts should focus on identifying preventive and screening measures for populations and for individual patients. It is important that effective food policies are implemented.Dr Jonathan Pearson-Stuttard of Imperial College London, lead author of the Lancet study
Alarm Bells in India
India has over 60 million diabetics in the country, that is projected to at least double by 2030.
The number of overweight people in India has almost doubled in the past decade according a recent Lancet report. The study looked at BMI (body mass index) trends in 200 countries from 1975-2016. It found that worldwide the number of obese girls in age group 5-19 has risen from 5 million to 50 million in 40 years, and boys from 6 million to 74 million.
In a recent conversation FIT had with top doctors, they pointed out how Indian’s are most at risk because of the thrifty genes that most Indians are born with. The thrifty genes helped survival in the past when food supply was low, but with plenty food and reduced physical work, they make us more susceptible to lifestyle diseases.
India’s Cancer Burden
According to a study published in 2016 in the Journal of Global Oncology, every day, cancer has the last word in the lives of 50 children across India.
By the year 2025, the number of cancer cases in both kids and adults in India will multiply five times, with a higher spike in women than men, according to the World Health Organisation.
The new study projected prevalence of diabetes and high BMI for 2025 compared with the prevalence in 2002, the researchers estimate that the proportion of related cancers will grow by more than 30 per cent in women and 20 per cent in men on an average.
It’s a crisis India cannot afford.
(With inputs from AFP.)
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