Overweight and Obesity linked to higher cancer risks, finds Danish Study

Obesity is associated with metabolic abnormalities that predispose patients to increased cancer risk. Contemporary data on the long‐term risk of specific cancers are sparse among patients with hospital‐diagnosed overweight and obesity.

Researchers at Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus N, Denmark conducted a nationwide Danish study to examine the overall cancer incidence and specific site‐related cancer incidences among patients with overweight and obesity, compared to the general Danish population.

The researchers found that overweight and obesity were associated with higher risks of several common cancers in a 40-year. The study has been published in the Journal of Internal Medicine.

The researchers reviewed medical databases to identify individuals with hospital‐based overweight and obesity diagnoses. They computed age‐ and gender‐standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) for subsequent cancer compared to the general population.In the study, there were 20,706 cancers among 313,321 adults diagnosed with overweight and obesity compared with 18,480 cancers that were expected based on information from the general population. This corresponds to a 12% higher risk associated with overweight and obesity.

They found that standardized incidence ratios associated with overweight and obesity were increased with concomitant comorbidities, like type 2 diabetes (SIR: 1.18; 95% CI: 1.13–1.23) and alcoholism‐related diseases (SIR: 1.62; 95% CI: 1.45–1.82). The SIR was 1.31 (95% CI: 1.28–1.34) for cancers previously identified as obesity‐related, including pancreatic (SIR: 1.38; 95% CI; 1.27–1.49) and postmenopausal breast cancer (SIR: 1.14; 95% CI: 1.09–1.19). Obesity/overweight status also elevated the SIRs for haematological (SIR: 1.24; 95% CI: 1.18–1.29) and neurological cancers (SIR: 1.19; 95% CI: 1.11–1.27]. In contrast, SIRs were 1.01 (95% CI: 0.97–1.05) for immune‐related cancers, 0.88 (95% CI: 0.82–0.95) for malignant melanoma, and 0.88 (95% CI: 0.85–0.92) for hormone‐related cancers, other than postmenopausal breast cancer.

Having type 2 diabetes or alcoholism-related diseases in addition to overweight or obesity was linked with even higher risks.

The researchers concluded that overweight and obesity were associated with increased risk of several common cancers.The increased risk was seen for cancers previously identified as obesity-related, including pancreatic and postmenopausal breast cancers, as well as for blood and neurological cancers.

For more details click on the link: https://doi.org/10.1111/joim.13013