"We know that excess body weight adversely affects every organ system in the body, " says Dr. Gary Foster, director of Temple University's Center for Obesity Research and Education in Philadelphia.
Lesley Griffiths was answering AMs' questions on the bill to create the UK's first opt-out organ donor system.
BBC: Organ donation: Opt-out bill to exclude some transplants
Doctors have reiterated their support for overhauling the organ donation system.
The Human Transplantation Bill, which could become law by 2015, would mean adults living in Wales would have to "opt-out" of the organ donation system if they did not want to donate after death.
Ms Griffiths told the health committee that, on average, three people a month in Wales die while waiting for an organ transplant and a new "soft opt-out" organ donation system would "significantly improve" on that situation.
BBC: Organ donation: Opt-out bill to exclude some transplants
Our organ-donor system depends on voluntary donors, and the network maintains the waiting lists.
The first organ that the system has been used to emulate is the uterus, because keyhole surgery is widely employed to deal with ectopic pregnancies (those where the fetus develops in the fallopian tubes leading into the womb, rather than in the womb itself).
Officials say the country would instead rely on a new national donation system for organ transplants.
If that bill is passed, an opt-out system for organ donation could become law around the beginning of 2015.
In Wales the situation with regards to adopting an opt out system for organ donation is a lot more advanced than in England.
The Welsh Government's just released two documents as part of its consultation on legislation to bring in a soft opt out system of organ donation.
If the legal advice is that the proposals do cross into areas of individual liberty and human rights, then it is possible that it would be determined that a system of organ donation cannot be devolved.
The Welsh Government has commissioned Beaufort Research to carry out a qualitative survey of people's attitudes to an opt-out system of organ donation which comes to some striking - and perhaps counterintuitive - conclusions about this very issue.
The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, a public-private partnership that sets nationalpolicies for organ allocation and screening, and the United Network for Organ Sharing, which operates the system, are formulating a policy for living-donor screening that would keep patients safe without compromising organ availability, said Connie L. Davis, who chairs the panel working on the policy.
Because these cells would essentially be clones made from the patient's own cells, there would be no risk of the rejection problems typical with organ transplants, and therefore no need for the drugs that prevent the immune system from attacking a transplanted organ.
Huang Jiefu, vice minister of health, was quoted by Xinhua as saying that a trial system for public organ donation has been launched in some areas.
The Nuffield Council's report also considers moving to an "opt-out" system for deceased organ donation, under which it would be assumed that people consent to donation unless they either opt out before they die, or their family later objects.
This means the patient won't have to take powerful drugs to prevent her immune system from rejecting the organ.
This happens when cells from the immune system gather around the foreign organ and try to destroy it.
The Kepners knew a double hand transplant meant Kepner would have to take drugs to suppress his immune system for the rest of his life (like any transplant, the recipient's immune system could attack the new organ as a foreign object).
Louis Children's Hospital is a board member at the United Network for Organ Sharing and helped write the current pediatric transplant system.
Under the proposed legislation, a person would be deemed to have agreed to be an organ donor, unless they opted out of the system.
The system is designed to increase the number of organ and tissue donors, if legislation is approved.
But because the review process involves research and public comment and because there's not enough organ donations for children, the nation's transplant system won't likely be able to save the life of Sarah Murnaghan, who could die within weeks without a transplant of lungs.
Mrs Taylor backs the Welsh government's plans change organ donation in Wales to an "opt-out" system.
The bill to introduce an opt-out system, which presumes people have consented to being organ donors unless they state otherwise, is making its way through the assembly.
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Tissue cloned in this way from the patient's own cells would not, it is thought, be rejected by the body's immune system, which is currently a major obstacle to organ transplants and many other treatments.
ECONOMIST: To clone or not to clone, is that the question? | The
The proposed system would mean everyone is assumed to be a willing organ donor when they die, unless they state otherwise.
The BMA in Scotland renewed calls for an "opt-out" system, arguing that 90% of the population support organ donation, yet only 40% have signed up.
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