Depression, anxiety may take same toll on health as smoking and obesity

An annual physical typically involves a weight check and questions about unhealthy habits like smoking, but a new study from UC San Francisco suggests health care providers may be overlooking a critical question: Are you depressed or anxious?

Anxiety and depression may be leading predictors of conditions ranging from heart disease and high blood pressure to arthritis, headaches, back pain and stomach upset, having similar effects as long-established risk factors like smoking and obesity, according to the new research.

In the study looked at the health data of more than 15,000 older adults over a four-year period.

They found that 16 percent (2,225) suffered from high levels of anxiety and depression, 31 percent (4,737) were obese and 14 percent (2,125) were current smokers, according to their study published in the journal Health Psychology on Dec. 17, 2018.

Participants with high levels of anxiety and depression were found to face 65 percent increased odds for a heart condition, 64 percent for stroke, 50 percent for high blood pressure and 87 for arthritis, compared to those without anxiety and depression.

"These increased odds are similar to those of participants who are smokers or are obese," said O'Donovan, who, with Niles, also is affiliated with UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. "However, for arthritis, high anxiety and depression seem to confer higher risks than smoking and obesity."

Cancer an Exception to Conditions Impacted by Depression and Anxiety

Unlike the other conditions investigated, the authors found that high levels of depression and anxiety were not associated with cancer incidence. This confirms results from previous studies, but contradicts a prevailing idea shared by many patients.

"Our findings are in line with a lot of other studies showing that psychological distress is not a strong predictor of many types of cancer," O'Donovan said. "On top of highlighting that mental health matters for a whole host of medical illnesses, it is important that we promote these null findings. We need to stop attributing cancer diagnoses to histories of stress, depression and anxiety."

Niles and O'Donovan discovered that symptoms such as headache, stomach upset, back pain and shortness of breath increased exponentially in association with high stress and depression. Odds for headache, for example, were 161 percent higher in this group, compared with no increase among the participants who were obese and smokers.

Treating Mental Health Can Cut Health Care Costs

"Anxiety and depression symptoms are strongly linked to poor physical health, yet these conditions continue to receive limited attention in primary care settings, compared to smoking and obesity," Niles said. "To our knowledge this is the first study that directly compared anxiety and depression to obesity and smoking as prospective risk factors for disease onset in long-term studies."

The results of the study underscore the "long-term costs of untreated depression and anxiety," said O'Donovan. "They serve as a reminder that treating mental health conditions can save money for health systems."

The two authors evaluated health data from a government study of 15,418 retirees, whose average age was 68. Depression and anxiety symptoms were assessed using data from participant interviews. Participants were questioned about their current smoking status, while weight was self-reported or measured during in-person visits. Medical diagnoses and somatic symptoms were reported by participants.

We welcome researchers from different part of the to submit abstract on their latest research at our upcoming conference Cell Tissue Science 2019 which is mainly focuses on the complications the consequences of Stem Cell, Regenerative Medicine, Stem Cell Therapy, Cancer Cell Biology , Technical Advancements in cancer treatment and many more.We welcome you to the our upcoming conference “ 12th World Congress on Cell & Tissue Science” . 

You can submit your abstract on Session or Track : 08.Cancer Cell Biology

Excess body weight responsible for nearly 4 percent of cancers worldwide

Policies, economic systems, and marketing practices that promote the consumption of energy-dense, nutrient-poor food, changing behavioral patterns that couple high total energy intake with insufficient physical activity, and human-built environments that amplify these factors are driving a worldwide rise in excess body weight, according to a new report. The report, appearing early online in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, says excess body weight accounted for approximately 3.9% of all cancers worldwide in 2012, a figure that will undoubtedly rise in the coming decades given current trends.

The prevalence of excess body weight has been increasing worldwide since the 1970s. In 2016, approximately 40% of adults and 18% of children (ages 5-19 years) had excess body weight, equating to almost 2 billion adults and 340 million children around the globe. The report says the prevalence of excess body weight has increased rapidly in most countries across all population groups. Some of the steepest increases are in low- and middle-income countries, likely the result of the spread of the "Western lifestyle," consisting of energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods alongside reduced physical activity levels.

In 2015, an estimated 4 million deaths were attributable to excess body weight. The worldwide economic impact of illness related to excess body weight is estimated at $2.0 trillion. In 2012, excess body weight accounted for approximately 544,300 cancers, 3.9% of all cancers worldwide, with the proportion varying from less than 1% in low-income countries to 7% or 8% in some high-income Western countries and in Middle Eastern and Northern African countries.

Overweight and obesity has been linked to an increased risk of 13 cancers: cancers of the breast (postmenopausal), colon and rectum (colorectal), corpus uteri, esophagus (adenocarcinoma), gallbladder, kidney, liver, ovary, pancreas, stomach (cardia), and thyroid, as well as meningioma and multiple myeloma. More recently, overweight has been labeled a probable cause of advanced prostate cancer as well as cancers of the mouth, pharynx, and larynx.

National wealth is the most apparent systematic driver of population obesity. The economic transition to a wealthier economy brings with it an environment that precipitate obesity. Each $10,000 increase in average national income is associated with a 0.4 increase in body mass index among adults. However, prosperity is not always correlated with excess body weight; obesity prevalence is quite low in high-income Asian Pacific countries (range, 4%-7%), which is likely a result of adherence to traditional dietary habits, which are conducive to lower calorie consumption, and an active transportation system that usually entails walking as part of daily activity. Meanwhile, the prevalence of obesity is very high in some lower-income countries, such as some Pacific Island nations (range, 40%-65%) and Egypt (43% among women and 24% among men).

Halting the rise in obesity is one of the World Health Organization (WHO)'s nine 2025 targets to address the growing global burden of noncommunicable diseases, including cancer. While the current pace of increasing and existing challenges makes achieving this goal appears unlikely, the WHO says high-priority strategies that should be adopted by governments, industries, and civil societies include population-wide, policy-led interventions to rectify the production, distribution, and marketing of unhealthy foods and changes in the built environment to promote adequate levels of physical activity.

Those interventions include eliminating trans-fats through the development of legislation to ban their use in the food chain; reducing sugar consumption through effective taxation on sugar-sweetened beverages; implementing subsidies to increase the intake of fruits and vegetables; limiting portion and package size to reduce energy intake and the risk of excess body weight; ensuring that urban design incorporates the core elements of residential density, connected street networks that include sidewalks, easy access to a diversity of destinations, and access to public transport; and providing convenient and safe access to quality public open space and adequate infrastructure to support walking and cycling.

"There is emerging consensus on opportunities for obesity control through the multisectoral coordinated implementation of core policy actions to promote an environment conducive to a healthy diet and active living," says Hyuna Sung, American Cancer Society scientist."The rapid increase in both the prevalence of excess body weight and the associated cancer burden highlights the need for a rejuvenated focus on identifying, implementing, and evaluating interventions to prevent and control excess body weight."

We welcome researchers from different part of the to submit abstract on their latest research at our upcoming conference Cell Tissue Science 2019 which is mainly focuses on the complications the consequences of Stem Cell, Regenerative Medicine, Stem Cell Therapy, Cancer Cell Biology , Technical Advancements in cancer treatment and many more.We welcome you to the our upcoming conference “ 12th World Congress on Cell & Tissue Science” .  You can submit your abstract on Session or Track : 08.Cancer Cell Biology