Stay fat, stay healthy

Contrary to hysterical reports in the media, fat doesn't always, or even often, lead to cancer. At least nine studies have found an assocation between *increasing* weight and *lower* mortality from cancer of all types. An example, the landmark Seven Countries Study which followed 13,000 men for 40 years found that risk of dying from cancer decreases with increasing weight. The study itself says that "the risk of dying from cancer decreased with increasing relative weight".

In other studies, the association between *less-than-average* weight and a *higher* overeall cancer mortality remains even when controlling for smoking and for "occult wasting" (i.e. weight loss brought on by a preexisting diesease). Other studies, like the one in the New England Journal of Medicine from 2003 which is often cited in linking fat to cancer, has rather ambiguous results, with only a slighty elevated risk among only the fattest of the subjects and no elevated risk for the moderately "overweight".

(source, Paul Campos, "The Obesity Myth")

I know I'm talking a lot about fat and food lately. I'm on a bit of a crusade. I'll eventually move on to other topics, I promise.