Obesity and Cancer

We have recently examined the issues of inflammation and cancer as well as the microbiome and cancer. A long standing relationship is with obesity and cancer. Obesity increases inflammation as well as altering the microbiome. Science notes:

Obesity-associated inflammation (OAI) can dramatically alter tissue composition, thereby creating a fertile soil for cancer development; it is conceivable that these changes may lower mutational and epigenetic barriers to tumorigenesis. For instance, in breast and pancreas, OAI is associated with altered extracellular matrix composition that facilitates transformation of premalignant cells. In the colon, epigenetic alterations that occur in cancer are observed in normal epithelial cells in the context of obesity, thus lowering the mutational threshold that is required for malignant transformation. These studies suggest that OAI “primes” both the tissue microenvironment and premalignant epithelial cells to facilitate oncogenic transformation. Indeed, obesity is often associated with specific molecular subtypes of cancer, which may reflect a selective pressure exerted by the obese microenvironment resulting in the altered fitness of specific oncogenic mutations. Accordingly, tumors that evolve within an obese microenvironment may exhibit “obesity addiction” whereby they are driven by a dependency on hypernutrition and inflammatory cytokines.

It is interesting that fifty years ago we were all worried about the lack of food for humans. Now we have a massive explosion of obesity. Food seems no longer to be a global issue. But the sequellae from excess food may very well be more dire.