it wasn't even "obvious" for most of the 20th century cigarettes gave you cancer. people have short memories.
a contemporary example: is it "obvious" right now that sugar gives you cancer? because to a lot of people it is blindingly, astoundingly obvious, and to some that sounds like conspiracy theory nonsense.
i don't understand this aversion to doing "obvious" science -- we have to do science to make things obvious, not the other way around.
If you overeat of a Standard American Diet you increase the risk of heart disease and cancer.
A link between cancer incidence and height has also been reported in the past. There may be several factor at play (higher exposure to growth hormone, higher caloric intake) but it is not unreasonable to think that cell count is one of them. For things like skin cancer, it’s hard to justify that size doesn’t matter.