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These days, it seems as if most things cause or have a link to cancer. It's as if our modern world is out to get us. Ironically, there has never been a time in human history that we have been as informed about the causes of disease and premature death. It is common knowledge and practice that avoiding smoking, exercising and eating healthy are keys to living well.

In a new study in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, Joseph Sparano, MD, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine's Montefiore Medical Center, in Bronx, NY, and his colleagues across the US cancer cooperative groups compared the health outcomes of obese and overweight patients with others in a large group of women with stage I-III breast cancer who had participated in three National Cancer Institute-sponsored treatment trials led by the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (now part of the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group).

All of the trials (E1199, E5188, and E3189) required participants to have normal heart, kidney, liver, and bone marrow function, thereby excluding patients with other significant health issues. As a result, researchers were able to disentangle the influence of obesity from other factors affecting cancer recurrence and survival.

The results were alarming. The study's results suggest that extra body fat causes hormonal changes and inflammation that may drive some cases of breast cancer to spread and recur despite treatment.

"We found that obesity at diagnosis of breast cancer is associated with about a 30 percent higher risk of recurrence and a nearly 50 percent higher risk of death despite optimal treatment," said Dr. Sparano. "Treatment strategies aimed at interfering with hormonal changes and inflammation caused by obesity may help reduce the risk of recurrence," he added.

This research may help explain the higher incidence of cancers and recurrence in poorer communities where obesity levels are also higher. Perhaps by helping all communities live healthier lifestyles, we can stave off the human and societal costs later on. My vote is to place salads on the dollar menus and replace ice cream trucks with fruit carts.