Genetics, Environment, Lifestyle

Another health warning issued from another source to Canadians that their lifestyle choices commit them to future medical problems that will inevitably shorten their lives. The general public is wedded to the convenience of not having to think about food preparation, about the imperative to ensure that our bodies are well stocked with nutritious whole foods, and not the substitute food-alternatives that are formulated to appeal to our taste-buds while insulting our internal organs.

The dread incidence of lung cancer has been decreased because the lesson of tobacco as a deadly carcinogen was taken seriously by enough people who made a strenuous effort to free themselves from the addiction. Our addiction to food is a matter of existential necessity, without food we would not exist. But it is food, as nature provides it, that is vital to our health and well-being; the basic product that has been tampered with to appear as food has proven vastly detrimental to our health.

The life-shortening propensities of a fast-food diet, a diet heavily laced with additives, where the emphasis is on fats and salt to appeal to our taste aesthetics, and the pleasure we take in consuming these products oblivious to the amounts we take into our systems, with the focus on red meats and the shunning of fresh fruits and vegetables take its inevitable toll on us.

The growing and health-worrisome epidemic of obesity within the general population -- and specifically among the young -- has resulted in health afflictions of a chronic nature, of the onset of dread diseases shortening people's lives, and it is clear enough that while the struggle with smoking cessation was difficult for people, the absolute need to come to terms with our food intake is that much more difficult.

Belly fat is now being implicated in a surprisingly rapid rise in cancer of the esophagus, one of cancer's most deadly incarnations. Esophageal adenocarcinoma - cancers that form in the lower esophagus, closest to the stomach, has doubled in its onset rate in the past 20 years in Canada, according to the latest research.

A major risk factor for esophageal adenocarcinoma is chronic heartburn, known medically as gastroesophageal-reflux disease. Stomach acid is sent up into the lower esophagus, damaging the tissues lining the esophagus, making them susceptible to becoming cancerous. Acid reflux increases in proportion with increased belly fat.

A study published in the Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology states that the incidence of esophageal adenocarcinoma has increased by 4% yearly for both men and women from 1986 to 2006. Over the next fifteen years researchers project the rates of increase to the 40% to 50% realm if current trends continue.

The dominant cases of esophageal cancer were traditionally the upper food pipe, called squamous cell carcinomas that were linked with smoking and alcohol consumption. That has now all changed. And Esophageal cancer is increasing throughout the developed world, with one of the lowest survival rates of any cancer. Its detection and diagnosis usually occurs when the cancer has already spread.

Researchers form the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle this week reported that belly fat is strongly associated with Barrett's esophagus, where the tissues lining the esophagus become damaged from chronic acid reflux, progressing to cancer.  Diets high in red meat and saturated fats are pinpointed as risk factors.

This type of cancer is "down the list" of the most common cancers, but "we're still talking about almost 2,000 new cases in Canada every year, and almost the same number of deaths", explained Michael Otterstatter, senior scientist and epidemiologist at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver.