Dr. Hudis on the Challenges of Understanding Obesity and Cancer

Video

Clifford A. Hudis, MD, chief, Breast Cancer Medicine Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, professor of medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, discusses the challenges of understanding the link between obesity and cancer.

Clifford A. Hudis, MD, chief, Breast Cancer Medicine Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, professor of medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, discusses the challenges of understanding the link between obesity and cancer.

Hudis says one of the challenges of scientifically approaching the problem of obesity in cancer is developing evidence in order to give meaningful advice to patients.

Researchers are unsure if all obesity patients are the same, or if there’s a subset where an intervention might make a difference. Hudis says it is theorized that this subset is the majority of patients who have inflammation. It is also theorized that there is a subset of patients who are not obese, but still have inflammation.

Since it is hypothesized that inflammation is the target, researchers wonder if anti-inflammatory drugs would make a difference or if more conventional methods such as diet and exercise would be the better intervention.

While researchers don’t have compelling evidence for specific interventions, Hudis says substantial evidence suggests that weight loss and a healthy diet are generally useful outside of cancer.

Newsletter

Stay up to date on recent advances in oncology nursing and patient care.

Recent Videos
2 experts are featured in this series.
2 experts are featured in this series.
Photo of a woman with brown hair and a floral blouse
Photo of a woman with a blue border around the image
2 experts are featured in this series.
2 experts are featured in this series.
Image of a woman with gray hair and glasses in front of a blue Oncology Nursing News background
Photo of a woman with blond wavy hair wearing a blazer in front of a blue Oncology Nursing News background
Photo of a woman with shoulder-length blond hair in front of an Oncology Nursing News backdrop
Image of a woman with white hair in front of an Oncology Nursing News blue background