Healthy living
Diet and weight loss
Female fat linked to cancer risk
Being overweight or obese cause 6,000 cancers a year in UK women
Cancer Research UK researchers at Oxford University looking into rates of 17 specific cancers in women have concluded that 10 types of cancer are linked to weight gain.
Almost a quarter of British women are obese, and just over a third are overweight, putting an increasing number at risk of developing cancer, according to the study which is published in the BMJ online.
The Million Women Study recruited 1.2 million women aged from 50 to 64 and examined the relation between body mass index (BMI), cancer rates and death. The women were tracked for over five years to find out whether they had developed any of the 17 cancers under investigation, and for seven years to find out if any had died from cancer. A total of 45,037 new cancers and 17,203 deaths from cancer occurred during the seven-year period.
Increasing body mass index was linked to an increase in 10 out of the 17 specific types of cancer examined: endometrial cancer, adenocarcinoma (malignant tumor) of the oesophagus, kidney cancer, leukaemia, multiple myeloma, pancreatic cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, ovarian cancer and, in some age groups, breast and colorectal cancer.
The data also reveals that whether a woman is post-menopausal is a key factor in the relation between body mass index and cancer risk of cancer, not only for those cancers that are known to be hormonally related, such as breast and endometrial cancer, but also for other common cancers not generally thought to be affected by hormones, such as colorectal cancer and malignant melanoma.
Even after taking into account factors such as cigarette and alcohol use, wealth, physical activity and use of HRT, the researchers estimate that 5% of all cancers (about 6,000 annually) affecting postmenopausal women are caused by being overweight or obese. But the impact of excess weight on cancer risk was much bigger for some cancers than for others.
For endometrial cancer and adenocarcinoma of the oesophagus in particular, body mass index represents a major risk factor, as about half of all cases are caused by being overweight or obese, they conclude.
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Information on this site is for interest only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. You should consult your own doctor about any specific health concerns.
