Obesity markers associated with increased risk for cancer at 10 sites
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Obesity increases the risk for developing cancer at 10 different sites, regardless of which adiposity-related markers are used, according to data presented at the European Congress on Obesity annual meeting.
“The associations were mostly linear among all adiposity markers,” Carlos Celis-Morales, PhD, a research fellow at the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow, U.K., told Healio. “This means that the bigger or heavier you are, the higher your risk of developing cancer. Although we investigated the association of six adiposity markers with cancer risk, our findings suggest that all markers predict cancer risk to a similar extent, so therefore using a cheap and simple method, such as BMI, could predict cancer as well as some expensive methods such as DXA or bioimpedance.”
Celis-Morales and colleagues analyzed data from 437,393 participants in the UK Biobank prospective cohort study (53.8% women; mean age, 56.3 years). Incidences of cancer and mortality were extracted. Six adiposity markers were included in the study: BMI, body fat percentage, waist-hip ratio, waist-height ratio, waist circumference and hip circumference.
During a median follow-up of 8.8 years, 47,882 people developed cancer. After adjusting for covariates, BMI was associated with an increased risk for 10 different types of cancer, including stomach cardia (HR = 1.35; 95% CI, 1.23-1.47), gallbladder (HR = 1.33; 95% CI, 1.12-1.58), liver (HR = 1.27; 95% CI, 1.19-1.36), kidney (HR = 1.26; 95% CI, 1.2-1.33), colorectal (HR = 1.1; 95% CI, 1.06-1.13), endometrial (HR = 1.73; 95% CI, 1.65-1.82), uterine (HR = 1.68; 95% CI, 1.6-1.75) and breast cancer (HR = 1.08; 95% CI, 1.05-1.11). BMI was associated with a slightly higher overall risk for cancer (HR = 1.03; 95% CI, 1.02-1.04).
Celis-Morales said there are a few reasons why obesity may increase the risk for cancer.
“Although obesity is a multifactorial disease, a poor diet (characterized by an excessive energy intake) and lack of physical activity are two of the main risk factors,” Celis-Morales said. “We also know that both a poor diet and insufficient physical activity are also risk factors for cancer, so this link between obesity and cancer may be explained by our lifestyle factors.”
All six adiposity markers had similar associations with overall incidences of cancers. Celis-Morales said there are better markers of obesity than BMI, but the findings show BMI can be used as a straightforward way to predict cancer risk.
“To date, BMI is the most used marker in clinical practice; it is easy and cheap to implement, so we should keep doing the same,” Celis-Morales said.
Collapse
Parra-Soto S, et al. Six adiposity-related markers associated with incidence from 24 cancers – Findings from the UK Biobank prospective cohort study. Presented at: European Congress on Obesity Annual Meeting; May 10-13, 2021; (virtual meeting).
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts