Obesity linked to many chronic diseases and cancerous tumors
Workshop recommends application of laws to preserve health
KUWAIT CITY, Oct 19, (KUNA): The Secretary-General of the Gulf Union for Cancer Control, Dr. Khaled Al-Saleh, said that obesity constitutes a major challenge for public health, pointing out that there is a strong relationship between obesity and many chronic diseases, including cancerous tumors.
This came on the sidelines of a workshop ‘Updates in the relationship between obesity and the most common cancerous diseases’ held Wednesday, organized by the Gulf Union for Cancer Control in cooperation with the Cancer Awareness Nation (CAN) as part of the activities of the Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Campaign
Al-Saleh, who also heads the CAN campaign, said that the workshop shed light on obesity patterns and its prevalence rate in the world, pointing out that Kuwait occupies the fourth place globally in the prevalence of obesity.
He stated that the workshop reviewed the effect of obesity on treatment and its role in its complications, the mechanism of the effect of obesity on the incidence of various cancer diseases, the role of awareness-raising in combating obesity, and the role of therapeutic nutrition in this field.
He indicated that according to the World Health Organization in 2016, 39 percent of adults in the world are overweight and 13 percent are obese, and 38.3 million children under the age of five are overweight and obese, based on 2019 statistics and pointed out that there is a strong relationship between obesity and many chronic diseases, including cancerous tumors such as diabetes, heart disease, cerebral palsy, liver and gallbladder, in addition to cancers such as endometriosis, breast, ovary, colon, rectum and pancreas.
Al-Saleh indicated that the workshop recommended the establishment of a center for scientific research that includes the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the development of a general strategy to establish awareness campaigns about the harmful effects of obesity, in which government agencies and all parties working in civil society institutions and organizations and associations of public interest participate.
He said that the workshop also recommended the application of laws to preserve health, which will reflect positively on changing the prevailing dietary patterns, which leads beyond any doubt to increase the incidence of obesity, starting from the kindergarten stages and above, to protect our children and teach them the correct eating habits and the importance of physical activity.
Workshop
He explained that the Federation had recently organized a workshop entitled ‘Updates in the Guidelines for Women’s Cancers’ within the activities of the campaign ‘Your Health is a Crown’ with Gulf participation to review the developments that are the result of long efforts.
Al-Saleh stressed the importance of providing guidelines in the right way, and that the number of female cancer cases in the State of Kuwait reached 856 cases (according to the 2018 Cancer Registry), 475 of which were among Kuwaiti women and 381 were among non-Kuwaiti women, which indicates an increase in the discovery of these tumors among women. And that “It places the responsibility on us to continue to update the guidelines that the GCC Cancer Control Committee has recognized as important and that all oncologists, obstetricians and gynecologists can benefit from in order to know the best approaches to diagnosis and treatment.”