A new study further highlights the negative implications of America’s obesity epidemic and why more education and policy changes are necessary to combat it: Some 40 percent of all cancers in the U.S. or about 630,000 cases annually, are linked to being overweight.

The findings by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are particularly relevant, officials said, because nearly three-in-four adults, or 71 percent, are either overweight or obese.

The study’s results “are a cause for concern,” said CDC Director Brenda Fitzgerald, in perhaps the biggest medical-related understatement of the year so far.

“A majority of American adults weigh more than recommended — and being overweight or obese puts people at higher risk for a number of cancers,” Fitzgerald said in a statement, as reported by Agence France Presse. “By getting to and keeping a healthy weight, we all can play a role in cancer prevention.”

Researchers say that people who carry around too much additional weight are at greater risk of developing 13 types of tumors that include cancers of the esophagus, thyroid, postmenopausal breast, stomach, gallbladder, liver, ovaries, pancreas, rectum, uterus and kidneys.

What’s more, incidents of obesity-related cancers are rising as the epidemic widens. This is in contrast to a drop in the overall rate of new cancer cases not related to obesity, which has been falling since the 1990s.

In fact, there was just one obesity-related cancer that has declined from 2005-2014, and that is colorectal cancer, researchers said. Those cases have fallen off 23 percent during the aforementioned timeframe, due in large part to better screening, the CDC study noted. But all other cancers tied to obesity rose 7 percent during the same period.

AFP noted that about two-thirds of the 630,000 weight-related cancers that were diagnosed in 2014 were found in Americans between the ages of 50 and 74. Researchers found that women in that age demographic were particularly susceptible, in fact; 55 percent of all cancers diagnosed in women were associated with being overweight or obese, compared to 24 percent of men who were diagnosed.

The problem is, as they say, only growing. The CDC breaks down the 71 percent overweight statistic thusly: 32.8 percent of Americans are overweight, while 37.9 percent are obese. (Related: Oregon university now pushing “fat studies” course that claims “weightism” is the new civil rights battleground.)

“Being overweight is defined as having a body mass index of 25-29.9 kg/m2, while obesity means a BMI of 30 or above,” says AFP. “BMI is calculated by taking a person’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of the person’s height in meters.”

Interestingly enough, the United States is not the world’s fattest country. In fact, according to the Gazette Review, the U.S. ranks No. 10 — below Mexico, Qatar, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, Belize, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, in that order. The percentage of Kuwait’s population that is overweight is a whopping 42.8 percent.

The obesity-cancer link is well-established. Way back in 2004 Natural News founder/editor Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, reported that research by the American Cancer Society found the link:

This is a link that has been frequently overlooked by almost everyone but is now coming out as a strong link and one that deserves attention. What it means is that dietary factors that contribute to obesity also indirectly contribute to cancer. So that sugarcoated donut you had in the morning doesn’t just make you fat, it may also eventually move you towards more serious disease like diabetes or cancer. 

Without question, America’s dietary habits — fast foods, processed foods, GMOs, sugary drinks — are the leading cause of obesity and cancer. And, as the above list of the world’s fattest countries proves, it’s also one of America’s most unhealthy exports: As U.S. fast food chains have spread to many of those countries, they brought with them what can only be referred to as “the food of death.”

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

NaturalNews.com

AFP.com