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Obesity and cancer – the risks vary with gender
There appears to be a close correlation between the increased risk of developing certain forms of cancer and our body mass index (BMI). Of course, the link between obesity and cancer is nothing new. But British researchers have now managed to evaluate the risk according to variations in BMI with a high level of accuracy. And the results seem to be very different depending on whether you are a man or a woman.
Dr Andrew Renehan and his colleagues in Manchester compared the results of 141 studies published on this subject. This allowed them to establish a “cohort” of more than 280,000 cancer sufferers.
In men, they have shown that a rise in BMI of 5kg/m2 increases the risk of oesophageal cancer (by +52%), thyroid cancer (by +33%) and colon and kidney cancer (by +24% each). In women, on the other hand, it is the endometrium and biliary vesicle that are most affected, with a 59% increase in risk. Next come the oesophagus (+51%) and the kidneys (+34%). Dr Renehan believes that “ these epidemiological observations could serve as the basis for new studies exploring the biological mechanisms linking obesity to these cancers”.
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11 article(s)
Obesity and cancer – the risk varies with gender
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