"Weighty Evidence

Living large can mean dying large, as familiar reminders about obesity's link to cardiovascular disease and diabetes repeatedly emphasize. But those warnings often overshadow another threat from obesity: cancer.

Excess weight accounts for 14 percent of cancer deaths in men, and 20 percent in women, researchers estimate. Among all preventable cancer risk factors, only smoking claims more lives.

Obesity's link to cancer should come as no surprise. Signs of that relationship began to emerge two decades ago. In the late 1980s, laboratory researchers found connections between cancer and insulin—one of the major hormones that responds to obesity.

While the findings got little attention then, today at least a half-dozen companies are developing cancer drugs that interfere with the hormone's cousin—insulinlike growth factor 1 (IGF-1).
"We've been working on this for 20 years," says Derek LeRoith of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. Yet until recently, "nobody ever bought into it." After all, even if a tumor does need insulin, the rest of the body does too. The early research was seen as hardly relevant for disease treatment.

Not so today. If clinical trials find that dampening IGF-1 shrinks tumors in cancer patients, scientists will have not only a new kind of cancer drug but also a new source of insight into the interplay between body weight, metabolism, and cancer.

In 2003, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that if the U.S. population were of a healthier weight, "90,000 deaths due to cancer could be prevented each year." That number may not fall for generations, as obesity rates among even the youngest in the developed world continue to soar. "

This gives us food for thought, and I will continue to reprint this article tomorrow.

Mental function is improved by physical activity, and conversely a lack of physical activity can lead to a decrease in blood supply to the brain, which is already evident in the aging process.

When the body is exercised it induces the growth of capillaries, or small blood vessels, in the brain which in turn enables nutrients to reach the neurons.

The other really important function of physical activity is to promote deep sleep. This is important because it is during the deep sleep that the brain rebalances the hormones and brain chemicals, consolidates memory, and gets us ready for the next day's activities.

If you haven't exercised regularly up until now it's not too late to start. Begin by visiting your doctor to make sure you are physically able to exercise, or start with a light exercise regime and gradually build up.

Long-term swimmers over 40 years old who swim more than four times a week show fewer signs of aging than the general population, according to a study at Indiana University. Dr Joel Stager, who led the study, says the subjects displayed lower blood pressure, blood triglycerides and cholesterol; better pulmonary function, and better muscle mass.

Source: Reader's Digest HealthSmart Summer 07/08