The Link Between Weight Loss And Disease Risk

If you’re overweight or obese, exercise along with diet can reduce your risk of chronic disease.

That’s the conclusion of a new study in the journal Cancer Research, which found that losing 5 to 10 percent of your body weight through the combined effort can result in a measurable reduction of markers for inflammation. Excess weight and inflammation are both related to several types of cancer, suggest experts at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

In the study, more than 400 postmenopausal overweight or obese women volunteered for a yearlong diet intervention with or without aerobic exercise. At the end of the program, the women significantly reduced their bodies’ measures of C-reactive protein (a protein produced by the liver whose levels rise when there is inflammation) and other risk factors.

The women who both exercised and lost weight had the greatest decrease; exercise alone, without shedding pounds, wasn’t very beneficial, according to the report.