Weight loss reduces your risk for cancer. Powerfully.

A New England Journal of Medicine study shows that being overweight is responsible for 14 percent of all cancer deaths in men and 20 percent in women. The study followed 900,000 cancer-free U.S. adults in 1982 for 16 years.

Why? One theory is that “fat cells produce a kind of estrogen called estradiol, and this accelerates rapid cell division, in turn increasing cancer risk.”