Belly Fat and Breast Cancer

         

  We used to think, fat is fat is fat.  Fat on your arms is arm fat, fat on your thighs is thigh fat and never the twain shall meet. That’s not the case.  It turns out that fat migrates like Ponce De Leon looking for the Fountain of Youth.  Body fat is in a perpetual cycle of build up and breakdown, so that fat cell living on your hiney this month may be reconstituted in your love handles next month.       
    

            So now that you know your fat is as mobile as migrants in a caravan, here comes a study that targets the bad news about belly fat. We’ve known for a number of years that excess body fat raises your risks for a number of diseases such as cardiovascular problems, cancers, diabetes and many more, but now we can say that fat in particular areas actually increases certain risks.  

            A study out of Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York reports that belly fat alone is a risk factor for breast cancer. And get this, it raises your risk even if your BMI is normal.  In other words, even if you are in a healthy overall weight, if you’ve got a pooch you might pout because your risk of breast cancer increases.  This is something pretty important because it differentiates between overweight and over-fat. We’ve all seen the skinny-minnie who eats everything sugar and stays a size 0.  Her BMI is great but if you look closer (inside) you would find her insides lined with fat and making up over 45% of her weight.  Not a good internal look for Ms.Minnie.  If most of that fat is around her midsection then her risk of breast cancer is greater than the lady who is 20 pounds overweight but has it spread out.

            One of the authors of this recent study, Dr.Andrew Dannenburg, stated, “It’s estimated that each year there are 250,000 new cases of breast cancer in the United States alone,” he added. “Previously it was uncertain why a woman who did not have a genetic predisposition would develop breast cancer. We can now say that, in some, unrecognized excess belly fat is the explanation.”

            The speculation is that the excess belly fat accentuates the inflammatory changes associated with fat which in turn creates the set up for cell damage.  This damage can lead to mutations spurring on cancerous developments.

            While you can’t spot reduce belly fat, you can reduce the “visceral” fat by reducing total body fat.  The bad news is that genetically most of us will gain fat quickest in the midsection, especially as we age, but the good news is that we tend to lose it the quickest there also.

            Exercise and a low carb diet are the two best tools for losing the belly fat.  The crazy “carb blocking” pills, “keto shakes” , and cellophane wrap all are mostly hype, and show little if any scientific evidence of doing anything but making you lighter in the wallet.