Obesity Raises Women’s Cancer Risk by 40%

Excess body weight has been linked with various diseases and hazardous health conditions, including cancer, by numerous research papers, but now a new study reveals alarming news. Obesity, defined as having a BMI of at least 30, increases cancer risk by around 40 percent in women.

Research team at Cancer Research UK have been exploring how exactly obesity affects women’s lifetime risk of developing cancers that have been linked with body weight. Scientists analyzed data on cancer risk in the population of the UK and data on obesity and excess weight in British women. They also considered the results of a 2011 paper in the British Journal of Cancer, which looked at the relation between obesity and cancer development. The study reveals that out of 1,000, 274 obese women will develop weight-related cancer in their lifetime. These include cancers of the uterus, kidney, bowel, gallbladder, pancreas and esophagus, and post-menopausal breast cancers. This is nearly 3 in 10, compared to less than 2 in 10 women with healthy weight.

Overall, obese women have a 40 percent higher risk for cancer than thinner women, the study finds. Body mass index (BMI) of 25 to 29 is categorized as “overweight”, while BMI of 30 and more is “obese”. This isn’t the first time scientists find an association between body weight and cancer. A previous research showed that 3.6 percent of new cancers diagnosed for a year, are related to obesity, with the rates being higher in women than in men. However, the reasons for this link aren’t fully been explored. One theory is that in women, obesity leads to increased production of hormones by fat cells, estrogen in particular.

The Cancer Research UK findings reveal the increased risk of different cancers in obese women compared to women with healthy weight in percentages. The risk of developing a cancer of the uterus is 131 percent higher, while the risk for esophageal 133 percent higher. The risk increases by 100% for gallbladder cancer, 78 percent for kidney cancer, 32% for bowel cancer, 31 percent for cancer of the pancreas, and 25% for post-menopausal breast cancer.