Obesity to overtake smoking as women’s top cancer risk

Overweight females are more prone to disease

OBESITY will overtake smoking as the leading preventable cause of cancer in women within 25 years, experts warn.

A study predicts that one in ten new female cancer cases will be caused by excess weight by 2035, only slightly less than by tobacco.

The predictions were made using current statistics on obesity and smoking in UK adults.

Rising obesity levels combined with falling smoking rates will see the two switch places by 2043, when 26,000 cases in the UK will be blamed on bulging waistlines. The shocking rise is because women are prone to more obesity-related cancers than men – including breast and womb cancer.

The figures led to calls for official health campaigns to focus as much on the dangers of excess weight as smoking.

Professor Linda Bauld of Cancer Research UK, which carried out the study, said: ‘Obesity is a huge public health threat right now, and it will only get worse if nothing is done.

‘The decline in smoking is a cause for celebration. It shows how decades of effort to raise awareness about the health risks plus strong political action including taxation, removing tobacco marketing and a ban on smoking in indoor public places, have paid off.

‘But just as there is still more to do to support people to quit smoking, we also need to act now to halt the tide of weight-related cancers and ensure this projection never becomes a reality.’

Smoking now causes 12% of new cancer cases in women in the UK, while excess weight is blamed for 7.5% of cases.

By 2035 figures are expected to show the number of cases caused by obesity rocketing, while falling rates of smoking will see a smaller rise in related cancer cases.

A quarter of a century from now, in 2043, with obesity continuing to rise, the two are expected to switch places. The study’s projections for men also show excess weight soaring as a cause for new cancer cases – from 9,600 now to 18,000 by 2043, compared with a smaller rise in smoking-related cases from 32,200 to 34,000.

Similar figures per head of population could be expected for Ireland.

But while researchers found that more males than females are overweight or obese, women are at particular risk because of its links to particular cancers. Being overweight increases the risk of 13 types of cancer including bowel, liver and kidney.

But a shocking one in ten breast cancer cases and one in three womb cancer cancers have now been linked to obesity.

A United Nations report released earlier this month found that one in four Irish people is obese, putting us slightly above the EU average.

An alarming study last year predicted that by 2030, nine out of every ten adults will be either overweight or obese.

While smoking rates have been steadily falling, the changing picture in terms of cancer cases will not be seen for some time as it typically takes smokers around 30 years to develop cancer.