(NaturalPath) According to a study out of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, overweight or obese women who lost weight through diet or a combination of diet and exercise also significantly lowered levels of proteins in the blood that help certain tumors grow.
The study parameters were that they measured three proteins known to enhance tumor-related angiogenesis – the formation of blood vessels that feed tumors and enable them to grow. They did this in order to see how cancer-promoting proteins changed when overweight, sedentary, postmenopausal women lost weight through diet or diet and exercise over the course of a year. Participants of the study were 439 healthy women that did not have cancer. Each of these women was placed in one of the four categories: calorie- and fat-restricted diet, aerobic exercise five days a week, combined diet and exercise or a control group.
The results of the study were that the women in the diet group and the diet and exercise group lost more weight and had significantly lower levels of angiogenesis-related proteins, compared with women in the exercise-only group and the control group.
This study shows that weight loss may be a safe and effective way to improve the “angiogenic profile” of healthy individuals, meaning they would have lower blood levels of cancer-promoting proteins. Although the researchers cannot say for certain that this would impact the growth of tumors, they believe there could be an association between reduced protein levels and a less favorable environment for tumor growth.
Razi Berry, Founder and Publisher of Naturopathic Doctor News & Review (ndnr.com) and NaturalPath (thenatpath.com), has spent the last decade as a natural medicine advocate and marketing whiz. She has galvanized and supported the naturopathic community, bringing a higher quality of healthcare to millions of North Americans through her publications. A self-proclaimed health-food junkie and mother of two; she loves all things nature, is obsessed with organic gardening, growing fruit trees (not easy in Phoenix), laughing until she snorts, and homeschooling. She is a little bit crunchy and yes, that is her real name.
