Lifestyle Diseases 11: Obesity and Cancer

Some good news and bad news here. The good news is that death from cancer is declining, at least in the US. The American Cancer Society released two days ago its report, Annual Report: More Than a Million Cancer Deaths Avoided in 2 Decades:

...A total of 1,638,910 new cancer cases and 577,190 deaths from cancer are projected to occur in the U.S. in 2012. Between 1990/1991 and 2008, the most recent year for which data is available, overall death rates decreased by about 23% in men and 15% in women. This translates to more than 1 million deaths from cancer that were avoided....

The American Cancer Society estimates that about one-third of cancer deaths in 2012 will be caused by tobacco use and another third will be related to overweight or obesity, physical inactivity, and poor nutrition.

Each year, American Cancer Society researchers include a special section in “Cancer Facts & Figures” highlighting an issue of cancer research or care. This year, the topic is cancers with increasing incidence trends. Despite a decline in the rates of the most common cancers, there has been an increase in the rates of several less common cancers: pancreas, liver, thyroid, kidney, melanoma of the skin, esophageal adenocarcinoma (a kind of esophagus cancer), and some kinds of throat cancer associated with HPV (human papillomavirus) infection.

The increase in the rate of new cases varied among population groups. Rates for HPV-related throat cancer and melanoma increased only in whites. Esophagus cancer rates increased in whites and Hispanic men. Liver cancer rates increased in white, black and Hispanic men, and in black women. Rates for thyroid and kidney cancers increased in all racial and ethnic groups except for American Indian/Alaska Native men.

Reasons for the increased rates are not entirely known. But increases in esophagus, pancreas, liver, and kidney cancers may be linked to obesity. It’s also possible that more of these cancers are being reported because of better early detection practices. These rising trends are part of the additional burden associated with an expanding and aging population, and call for additional research to determine the cause.

Yes, there are several reasons why cancer death is declining for some types of cancer, like early detection, changed and improved lifestyle, and newer and more powerful medicines. But as the report added, there is also an increase in the incidence of new types of cancer especially those that are directly related to unhealthy lifestyle like obesity, smoking and sedentary living. Only about one-third of the causes can be due to genetics and internal factors, the two-thirds are due to unhealthy lifestyle.

Of course the good news is that the average lifespan of people keep rising as infectious and communicable diseases are now more easily treated compared to many years ago, which reduces death rate now. And speaking of new medicines, the US FDA has approved last year seven new drugs against cancer:

1. Zytiga (albiraterone acetate) for late-stage prostate cancer
2. 2. Zelboraf (vemurafenib) and companion genetic test for late-stage melanoma
3. Xalkori (crizotinib) and companion genetic test for late-stage lung cancer
4. Yervoy (ipilimumab) for late-stage melanoma (skin cancer
5. Adcetris (brentuximab vedotin) to treat two types of lymphoma
6. Caprelsa (vandetanib) to treat thyroid cancer
7. Halaven (eribulin mesylate) for metastatic breast cancer.

See FDA's  Notable FY 2011 Approvals.

Now here's a piece of good news: there are nearly 900 new drugs under various phases of R&D and clinical trials being developed by the US' pharma companies and biotech research firms. See the report here, Nearly 900 Medicines and Vaccines in Testing Offer Hope in the Fight Against Cancer. It's 92 pages long.

But while developing new and more powerful medicines against various type of cancer will definitely help, preventive healthcare like healthy diet, non- or reduced smoking and heavy drinking will greatly help.

The rising death for some diseases due to unhealthy lifestyle should not be used as an excuse to allow governments to intervene further in healthcare, like imposing new rounds of drug price control and/or patent and IPR-busting policies. People and governments should be thankful that while many people tend to be not-so-responsible in handling their own body, some enterprises keep doing expensive R&D and clinical trials to give these people a second or more chance in life. People who survive cancer and other life-threatening diseases are not likely to abuse or continue to abuse, their body.
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See also:
Lifestyle Diseases 1: Obesity, February 04, 2011
Lifestyle Diseases 2: Killer diseases in the Philippines, March 16, 2011
Lifestyle Diseases 3: Causes of Mortality in the Philippines, August 10, 2011
Lifestyle Diseases 4: The UN on NCDs, September 24, 2011
Lifestyle Diseases 5: NCDs Global Picture, September 30, 2011
Lifestyle Diseases 6: Personal Care against NCDs, October 14, 2011
Lifestyle Diseases 7: Drinking and Healthcare, October 18, 2011
Lifestyle Diseases 8: WHO and the NCDs, December 08, 2011
Lifestyle Diseases 9: Overeating and Food Poisoning, December 24, 2011
Lifestyle Diseases 10: Financing Healthcare vs NCDs, December 30, 2011

Lifestyle Diseases 1: Obesity

Last year I wrote this:

Fat and Capital Accummulation

August 04, 2010

Obesity is one indicator of affluence in society. When economic productions are efficient and modern, there is ample production of many things -- food, beer, appliances, cars, cellphones, and so on. When food is plentiful, its relative price is low or cheap, so people eat and eat a lot. When car manufacturing is efficient, thousands of cars are churned out every month and cars are sold rather cheaply, well at least compared to several decades ago. And people tend to ride their cars even for short distances, they do not walk or ride bicycles anymore. And with fast production of tv sets, tv programs and movies, many people become couch potatoes, they sit down for hours watching tv or movies.

The overall result in economic affluence plus personal -- and possibly parental -- irresponsibility, is that people will have ugly bodies, like being over-fat or obese. If they eat like a pig and they do not burn enough energy, most likely they will have a body like a pig. They become obese. Of course there are also biological and medical reasons like low food metabolism, but the dominant explanation for high incidence of obesity is lifestyle changes and the success of economic modernization and capitalist accummulation.

In the US, about 26.7 percent of the entire population, around 73 million people, are considered obese. And this figure is considered as understated as the method in producing the figures is via phone call interviews, where some people would tend to understate the extent of fat accummulation of their body.

See one news report here, "Obesity rates keep rising, troubling health officials", http://http//www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/health/nutrition/04fat.html?_r=1&hpw

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the medical costs of obesity in the US is around $147 billion a year.

But is it government responsibility when people do not take care of their body? If people would love to eat and eat without control, or become too lazy to walk even for short distances, or too in love with their sofa and tv set that they sit there for many hours everyday, is it then government responsibility to treat them when they become obese?

A corollary to this is when people would drink and drink, smoke and smoke, almost without control, and develop various diseases in their internal organs later. In a social philosophy of "healthcare is a right", the State will create a complicated system of social engineering where those who work hard and take care of their body more responsibly will be forced by the State to contribute to a massive healthcare budget, in order to subsidize the health needs of those who are less responsible about their own body.

While capitalist accumulation in the social and economic sphere has been generally successful, the State's social engineering scheme where more hard-working individuals and more efficient business enterprises are coerced to surrender a big portion of their personal and corporate savings and surplus, can be wasteful.

Accumulating fat in the body is not a wise move to waste the savings of other people.

3 comments:

Joe Battad said...

You're looking at this only from the perspective of free choice. The minimal government that you spouse has to ensure that individual liberties are protected - physically by the use of force if necessary. See article below on effect of obesity on military recruitment. A volunteer army such as that of the US needs a healthy bunch of recruits to defend the liberties of Americans. In this case, government has to intervene and cannot just wait for "free choice" between healthy and unhealthy lifestyle to produce the army that it needs.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/53804

Nonoy Oplas said...

Thanks for the comment, Joe. I'm sure the US army will not hire obese soldiers, and this alone will encourage young Americans to take care of their body not to become obese if they want to join the army, the navy, other armed units of the US government.

If the government will intervene and use lots of tax money to treat the obese, then government should also use lots of tax money to treat the drunkards, the chain smokers, the drug addicts, and all other sick people due to lifestyle-releated diseases. Where is the limit or distinction now to personal vs. government responsibility in healthcare?

Cosmetic Surgery Philippines said...

In addition to the link of Joe Battad. People are paying huge taxes in America and it pours into morbidly obese people who spend too much on eating. So true. Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems. I repeat, "leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems." Health is one of the major concerns why government is giving free weight loss program. But to think of it, the government should have give effort on monitoring malnourishment(underweight and overweight)"first" during the early age, instead of giving corrections on the late part.
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Fat and Capital Accumulation, Part 2

August 4, 2011

(Note: The 3 pictures below were taken from www.photobucket.com)

As economies become richer and more efficient, food prices become cheaper relative to people's average income. Thus, people tend to eat more. In addition, cars and energy prices become relatively cheaper too, relative to people's average income. Thus, people tend to walk less and ride their cars more often. The 2nd, 3rd or 4th floor of a building also becomes less walkable as there are fast elevators anyway.

A combination of eating more and becoming less physically active is a perfect formula to have more fat accumulation in the body. And thus, overweight and obesity has become a health and social problem in many countries around the world now.

There was a report yesterday in yahoo news that discussed this phenomenon as indeed becoming a global health problem, 'Tsunami' of obesity worldwide: study.

by Winne Andrews Winne Andrews – Thu Feb 3, 9:29 pm ET

PARIS (AFP) – A "tsunami of obesity" is unfurling across the world, resulting in a near-doubling of the numbers of dangerously overweight adults since 1980, doctors warned on Friday.

More than half a billion men and women -- nearly one in nine of all adults -- are clinically obese, according to research by a team from Imperial College London, Harvard and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

In 2008, the latest year for which statistics were available, nearly one woman in seven and one man in 10 were obese, it found.

Being too fat causes three million premature deaths each year from heart disease, diabetes, cancers and other disorders, according to the WHO.

The researchers described the tableau as "a population emergency."

"(It) will cost tens of millions of preventable deaths unless rapid and widespread actions are taken by governments and health-care systems worldwide," said the report, published by The Lancet....

It is indeed ironic that having too much fatty food and having more convenience and modern cars and gadgetry in modern societies can create another round of health problems, when many sectors around the world are complaining of "food crisis", malnutrition and related issues.

But is reducing the high incidence of obesity mainly a government responsibility as what the health departments of many governments and the WHO would imply, or personal and parental responsibility? Over-eating and under-physical activity is a choice. No one coerced people to eat a lot, nor no one coerced people to sit for hours in front of tv or computer.

And this is where discussions and debates on "universal healthcare" can possibly focus. Should governments intervene more, like increasing the mandatory contributions for government-run health insurance system, so that obese and sickly people due to "lifestyle diseases" can be treated at lesser cost to these people?

Or should governments step back and encourage those people to purchase their own private health insurance, to augment whatever is being provided by government-run health insurance system?

My quick answer to the above questions is -- the latter.