Premium
Energy imbalance and cancer: Cause or consequence?
Author(s) -
Wang Xiaohui,
Liu Wei,
Xie Xiangyang
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
iubmb life
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.132
H-Index - 113
eISSN - 1521-6551
pISSN - 1521-6543
DOI - 10.1002/iub.1674
Subject(s) - obesity , cancer , context (archaeology) , disease , diabetes mellitus , medicine , cachexia , type 2 diabetes , anorexia , carcinogenesis , weight loss , bioinformatics , endocrinology , biology , paleontology
Obesity has been an epidemic worldwide over the past decades and significantly increases the risk of developing a variety of deadly diseases including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and many cancers. The relationship between obesity and type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease has been well documented. The drastically increased frequency of a number of cancers in obesity has attracted growing interest. On one hand, how increased adiposity promotes cancer development remains poorly understood, despite the fact that considerable epidemiological evidence has suggested links between them. On the other hand, however, numerous studies have shown that tumorigenesis leads to substantial weight loss in a large portion of cancer patients. Here, we summarize the recent advances on our understanding of the link between obesity and cancer development with a focus on the molecular mechanisms accounting for the rising cancer incidence in the context of obesity. In addition, we also discuss how cancer‐associated anorexia and cachexia causes weight loss. © 2017 IUBMB Life, 69(10):776–784, 2017