"BMC Medicine" published a paper on the 23rd reporting that regardless of whether they have cardiometabolic disorders, people with a higher body mass index (BMI) have an increased risk of cancer by more than 10%. The findings are based on a sample of more than 500,000 European adults.
Related studies have shown that a BMI above 25 is an established risk factor for at least 13 types of cancer, including postmenopausal female breast cancer, colorectal cancer, liver cancer, kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer and ovarian cancer. But it's unclear whether high BMI itself is associated with increased risk, or if other obesity-related conditions, such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, also play a role.
Scientists from the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer conducted the study using data from a total of 577,343 adults, including 344,094 participants from the British Biobank and 233,249 participants from the European Prospective Survey on Cancer and Nutrition study cohort.
The two cohorts were followed for a median of 10.9 years after recruitment, with 32,549 (9.5%) participants in the UK Biobank and 19,833 participants in the European Prospective Study on Cancer and Nutrition developing primary cancer. (8.3%) had primary cancer. There were 76,881 (22%) obese participants in the UK Biobank and 36,361 (15%) participants in the European Prospective Study on Cancer and Nutrition.
Overall, for individuals without cardiometabolic disease, a 5-point increase in BMI was associated with an 11% increased risk of obesity-related cancers. For every 5-point increase in BMI among people with type 2 diabetes, the risk of cancer increased by 11%, while for people with cardiovascular disease, the risk of cancer increased by 17%.
The results showed that higher BMI was associated with higher cancer risk, regardless of other cardiometabolic diseases. However, in the case of cardiovascular disease, the associated increase in cancer risk is particularly high with higher BMI, which highlights the need for these groups to prevent obesity to reduce the risk of cancer.
(Original title "Study based on sample data of more than 500,000 European adults shows that the higher the BMI, the higher the risk of cancer")