Obesity linked to pancreatic cancer.Pancreatic cancer pancreatic cancer Malignant tumour of the pancreas. Risk factors include smoking, a diet high in fat, exposure to certain industrial products, and diseases such as diabetes and chronic pancreatitis. Pancreatic cancer is more common in men. strikes obese and sedentary sedentary /sed·en·tary/ (sed´en-tar?e) 1. sitting habitually; of inactive habits. 2. pertaining to a sitting posture. sedentary of inactive habits; pertaining to a fat, castrated or confined animal. people more frequently than it does thin individuals and those who exercise regularly, a new study finds. The work suggests that some cases of this deadly disease might be avoided by lifestyle changes. Researchers identified 350 pancreatic cancer patients among a pool of more than 150,000 people who had filled out questionnaires in the 1970s that provided health and lifestyle data. The researchers had compiled the original data before any participants developed cancer. The scientists later compared the 350 people who eventually developed pancreatic cancer with study participants of similar age and lifestyle who didn't. The data show that although the overall risk of pancreatic cancer is small, obese people faced a 72 percent greater chance of developing pancreatic cancer than did trim people. The team, led by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health The Harvard School of Public Health is (colloquially, HSPH) is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Longwood Area of the Boston, Massachusetts neighborhood of Mission Hill, next to Harvard Medical School and Cambridge, Massachusetts, in Boston, accounted for smoking and other lifestyle choices that might bias results. The study appears in the Aug. 22/29 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association is an international peer-reviewed general medical journal, published 48 times per year by the American Medical Association. JAMA is the most widely circulated medical journal in the world. . The pancreas produces insulin, which cells need to process sugars. Obese people are often insulin resistant--their cells fail to use the hormone efficiently, leaving an excess of insulin in the blood. Overexposure overexposure too long an exposure time or too high a milliamperage causing too black a picture, loss of detail and some anomalies of translucency. to insulin in the pancreas could somehow increase the risk of cancer there, says study coauthor Dominique S Dom·i·nique also Dom·i·nick n. One of a breed of American domestic fowl having gray, barred plumage, yellow legs, and a rose-colored comb. [After Dominica.] Noun 1. . Michaud, an epidemiologist currently at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md. Exercise, even in moderate amounts, improves sugar metabolism. People who had exercised regularly--by walking or hiking 4 hours per week--faced only half the risk of pancreatic cancer as did those who didn't exercise at all, the researchers found. The frequency and size of meals also seems to affect risk. People who ate only one major meal per day and ate smaller amounts throughout the day faced about half the risk of pancreatic cancer as did people who ate three major meals per day. In an editorial accompanying the new study, Susan M. Gapstur and Peter Gann of Northwestern University Northwestern University, mainly at Evanston, Ill.; coeducational; chartered 1851, opened 1855 by Methodists. In 1873 it absorbed Evanston College for Ladies. Medical School in Chicago say the findings suggest that some pancreatic cancers might be preventable. Obesity and inactivity "could account for as much as 15 percent of pancreatic cancer cases beyond those attributable to smoking," they say. |
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