CVD risk factors raise odds of colorectal cancer
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Major risk factors for CVD were associated with elevated risk for colorectal cancer, according to research published in EClinicalMedicine.
“Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common malignancy and the second leading cause of cancer death worldwide. ... CVD is another leading cause of death and chronic disability for all regions of the world,” Chen Zhang, of the department of gastroenterology at Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences in Guangzhou, China, and colleagues wrote. “Although initially thought of as two separate disease entities, emerging evidence has suggested that there may be some common features linking both of them. Several studies have demonstrated that patients with coronary heart disease are at a higher risk of developing CRC.”
In a systematic review, researchers examined data from 84 prospective cohort studies (52,348,827 individuals; 384,973 incident cases) to better understand the association between CV risk factors and CRC. Researchers performed further meta-analysis for each CV risk factor utilizing random-effects models.
The researchers found the following CV risk factors were associated with elevated risk for CRC:
- obesity: RR = 1.31; 95% CI, 1.21-1.42;
- BMI: RR per 5 kg/m2 increase = 1.14; 95% CI, 1.09-1.2;
- past smoking: RR = 1.18; 95% CI, 1.14-1.23;
- current smoking: RR = 1.2; 95% CI, 1.1-1.3;
- diabetes: RR = 1.25; 95% CI, 1.16-1.35; and
- hypertension: RR = 1.07; 95% CI, 1.02-1.12.
Compared with those in the lowest quartile, those in the highest quartile of total cholesterol (RR = 1.12; 95% CI, 1.03-1.22) and triglycerides (RR = 1.18; 95% CI, 1.04-1.35) had elevated risk for CRC, but the same was not true for LDL (RR = 0.85; 95% CI, 0.62-1.17), the researchers wrote.
They also found that compared with those in the highest quartile, those in the lowest quartile of HDL had increased risk for CRC (RR = 1.14; 95% CI, 1.02-1.28).
“We found that major risk factors for cardiovascular diseases were associated with increased risk of colorectal cancer,” Zhang and colleagues wrote. “Our ndings extend the results of previous reports, not only to evidence that participants with established risk factors consistently experienced increased risks of CRC, but also to show positive associations between CRC and less well-described risk factors.”
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