The nutrition and cancer journey: from chemical-physical carcinogenesis to metabolic carcinogenis

Fri 29 November 2019

Wolfson College

Professor Elio Riboli, HonFPH, FMedSci, Professor in Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention, School of Public Health, Imperial College, London, gives the third lecture in the series 'Transforming Healthcare through Prevention'.
A growing body of scientific evidence has accumulated supporting the role in cancer aetiology of factors often labelled as “metabolic”, including diet, anthropometry, physical activity and metabolic syndrome components. To study these factors, we established EPIC (European Prospective Investigation into Cancer) in collaboration with researchers in 10 European countries and enrolled 521,000 participants (http://epic.iarc.fr/). EPIC contributed to the identification of the role of overweight, obesity and physical inactivity in increasing cancer risk, particularly for cancer of the colon and rectum, gastric cardia, oesophagus (adenocarcinoma), breast (after menopause), endometrium, ovary, kidney, liver, gallbladder, and pancreas. The mechanisms linking diet, obesity and physical inactivity with cancer are not fully understood, however there are promising research lines including insulin sensitivity deregulation, triggering of inflammation processes, deregulation of various tissue growth factors and cell cycle. The obesity, insulin resistance and cancer association has been recently corroborated by the results of mendelian randomization analyses showing that genetic variants predicting obesity or insulin resistance also predict higher risk of cancers of the colon, rectum and breast. Overall, diet, obesity and sedentary lifestyle have emerged as major worldwide causes of cancer, other chronic diseases as well as of premature death. This knowledge paves the way to new opportunities for primary and secondary cancer prevention.

Cost: Free