The growing number of people with obesity and the associated rapid increase in the incidence of diabetes mellitus lead to an increase in cancer cases.

More than five million people in Germany are affected by diabetes mellitus.

In over 90 percent of the cases it is type II of the disease, which is associated with being overweight.

This leads to an increase in blood sugar levels, although insulin is increasingly released.

However, the insulin is “used up” to build up fat tissue.

Feared long-term consequences of the misdirected metabolism are changes in the blood vessels that cause strokes, heart attacks and circulatory disorders in the extremities.

These diseases were previously considered the number one cause of death in diabetics.

But now it's time for doctors and patients to relearn, as was learned at the German Cancer Congress, which ended last week in Berlin.

Cancer has overtaken vascular disease as the cause of death in diabetics.

Type II diabetes mellitus and obesity are linked to cancer incidence through a number of metabolic pathways.

Obesity proves to be the strongest risk factor for the occurrence of malignant tumors, a finding that receives too little attention, it said in Berlin.

The World Health Organization has labeled obesity as a latent disease, a non-communicable pandemic.

In the wake of this non-contagious pandemic, the number of diabetics also increased.

In Germany, 52 percent of adults are overweight.

Three percent more than in 2005.

Reducing your weight also reduces your risk of cancer

Overweight is recorded by the body mass index.

It is calculated by dividing your body weight in kilograms by the square of your height.

In Germany, ten million people have stage I + II obesity, i.e. a body mass index (BMI) higher than 30. Over 750,000 people suffer from grade III obesity, corresponding to a BMI of more than 40. In This group has an exorbitantly higher cancer risk.

The lifetime risk of developing cancer in these patients is approximately fifty percent.

Ironically, the number of people with grade III obesity has increased by 85 percent in the past twelve years.

The tumor diseases in people who are overweight usually affect the esophagus, kidneys, bile ducts, stomach, large intestine and the female genital organs.

A connection between obesity, diabetes and cancer is proven by the observation that the cancer risk and mortality from cancer return to normal after weight reduction, for example after surgical interventions to treat obesity, as reported by obesity surgeon Till Hasenberg from Oberhausen.

Obesity increases the risk of cancer and adversely affects the course of cancer.