Bobby Orr, Gordie Howe, Wayne Gretzky: Imagine they were descending on your goal — and you'd never played hockey before.

Well, if you're obese and get cancer, your chances of fighting off the attack are about as good as your ability to defend that goal. Why? Because mature adipocytes (fat cells) secrete chemicals that cancer cells love to skate on.

A study published in Nature reveals that in prostate cancer, cancer cells can move on the fatty tissue that surrounds the prostate (called periprostatic adipose tissue) and spread quickly to other organs.

Because obese folks have more of this adipose tissue and each cell is larger than normal, they're at a much higher risk of having their cancer metastasize.

One more thing: The researchers also found that when you block the channel that periprostatic adipose tissue provides to cancer cells, you prevent cancer migration.