Cancer Synthesis Essay

The last few decades there is seen a strong increase in the number of people who are overweighed or have obesity in developed countries as well as in less developed countries (1). The World Health Organization has published that in 2014 approximately 40% of the people above eighteen years old are overweighed (2). It is known that an high body mass index (BMI) is associated with a higher risk on the development of many diseases, including several kinds of cancer (3-5). Recent studies have been shown that people with a BMI above 25 kg/m² have an increased incidence of developing endometrial, colorectal and postmenopausal breast cancer. In addition, people with a BMI above 30 kg/m² has also an increased incidence of developing esophageal, thyroid, renal, gallbladder, pancreatic and ovarian cancer as well as multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin
Exposure to radon gas, that is released from soil and building materials, is the second leading cause of lung cancer in well-developed regions as Europe and North America. Other risk factors for lung cancer are secondhand smoke exposure, asbestos, certain metals, exhaust gases and other organic chemicals, radiation or air pollution (12). When looked at a molecular level of cigarette smoke and other risk factors that causes lung cancer, all these smokes and gases contain several carcinogenic components. The most carcinogenic components in cigarette smoke are benzo[a]pyrene (BaP), a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, and nitrosamine (10). BaP is activated by the phase I enzymes that are responsible for the metabolism of xenobiotics, the cytochrome P450 enzymes (CYPs) (13). CYPs detoxify a wide variety of xenobiotics but also is an enzyme that provides bio activation of carcinogenic compounds, such as BaP, that can bind to DNA after it is metabolized to form DNA-adducts. The primary CYPs that are involved in especially the metabolism of BaP are CYP1A1 and CYP1B1