切勿忽視「內臟脂肪」與慢性病的關係

High blood pressureChronic diseases such as diabetes, dyslipidaemia, etc. are closely related to the accumulation of visceral fat, but not only affect these diseases, the Japanese Obesity Society's "Obesity Clinic Guidelines 2016" mentions that cancers such as colorectal cancer, some esophageal cancers, endometrial cancers, pancreatic cancers, renal cancers, breast cancers, and liver cancers are all related to the accumulation of fat.

Is it so terrible that fat accumulation can cause cancer?
The Japanese Obesity Society is not the only one to put forward such a view. In the reports submitted by the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) and the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) in 2007, it was indeed mentioned that obesity would lead to an increase in the risk of the incidence of a number of cancers such as adenocarcinoma of the oesophagus, colorectal cancer, cancer of the kidneys, cancer of the breasts of postmenopausal women, endometrial cancer, etc. The Japanese Obesity Society also mentioned that obesity would lead to an increase in the risk of the development of various cancers.

What percentage of all cancers is caused by obesity? There is a well-known paper on the causes of cancer in the United States, which was published in 1981, taking the results of a huge survey conducted in the past, and analysing and investigating the rate of cancer caused by various causes of cancer. 35% of cancers are due to dietary habits, 30% are due to smoking, and then viral or bacterial infections, and alcohol consumption, etc. The most common cause of cancer is obesity.
In 1996, the Cancer Prevention Centre of Harvard University in the United States also conducted the same study. Among the causes of death due to cancer, dietary habits and obesity in adulthood accounted for 30%, smoking also accounted for 30%, and the other causes, in order, were insufficient physical activity, alcohol consumption, and so on.
This is American data and cannot be directly applied to Asians, because the susceptibility to visceral fat accumulation alone is very different between Caucasians and Asians. However, among the causes of cancerEating habits and obesityThe result of 30~35% is really amazing.
At present, there is no research report on the percentage of obesity-induced cancers among all cancers in Asian populations. However, with the gradual Europeanisation of the public's diet, cancers such as colorectal cancer, breast cancer, and prostate cancer, which originally had a high incidence in Europe and the United States, but have a low incidence in Asians, have been on the rise.

In Japan, there is a large-scale study on colorectal cancer, in which it is reported that compared with people with a BMI of 25 or below, the rate of colorectal cancer in men with a BMI of 27 or above is 1.4 times higher.
The following chart shows the proportion of fat people with BMI value of 25 or above in both genders by targeting men and women over 20 years old. The proportion of females has been maintained at around 20%, while the proportion of males who are fat doubled during the 30 years from 1976 to 2006, and then remained at a high figure of around 30%. It is unlikely that the number of colorectal cancer patients will decrease.

Please take out your recent health check report to confirm whether your waist circumference is standard, and if so, by how much, and do so for the sake of your health.
Colorectal cancer is originally a low prevalence cancer among Asians and high prevalence cancer among Europeans and Americans. However, the incidence of colorectal cancer among Japanese immigrants to the United States has been rising, and the incidence rate of Japanese immigrants in the first generation is even comparable to that of Caucasians in the U.S. In the second and third generations, the incidence rate has not only risen, but also exceeded the incidence rate of Caucasians in the United States. This fact tells us that if Asians continue to eat in Europe and the United States, the risk of colorectal cancer will be higher than that of Caucasians.