Being
obese will un-doubtfully increase the risk for a wide variety of health and
medical problems. People that are overweight and obese during early adulthood
have a greater risk of contracting pancreatic cancer at a younger age, and
obesity at an older age is associated with a lower rate of survival from
pancreatic cancer.
What is Obesity?
Obesity is increasingly
being recognized as a risk factor not only for cancer development, but also for
worse outcomes after cancer treatment. Links between obesity and endometrial
cancer, postmenopausal breast cancer, and colorectal cancer are well
established, but the effects of obesity appear to extend to several other types
of cancer as well, including pancreatic cancer.
A commonly used (though imperfect) measure of body size is the body mass index (BMI). BMI involves a comparison of weight to height (weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared). A BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is generally considered healthy, a BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight, and a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese.
A commonly used (though imperfect) measure of body size is the body mass index (BMI). BMI involves a comparison of weight to height (weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared). A BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is generally considered healthy, a BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight, and a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese.
PanScan Study, 2010
While multiple previous
studies have shown the obesity is a substantial risk factor for breast and
colon cancers, a recent study by Arsian and colleagues from the Pancreatic
Cancer Cohort Consortium (PanScan) suggests that obesity is also contributes to
the pancreatic cancer risk factors.
Using a nested
case-control design that included 2170 cases and 2209 control subjects, the
PanScan study found a positive 33% higher risk for pancreatic cancer in
individuals with the highest compared to the lowest BMI quartile. This
relationship was found both in men and women.
When the researchers
looked at abdominal obesity, the risk for pancreatic cancer in women in the
highest quartile of waist circumference was almost twice that of women in the
lowest quartile. These findings certainly provide strong support for a positive
association between BMI and pancreatic cancer risk and suggest that centralized
fat distribution may increase pancreatic cancer risk, especially in women.
Given the observation
that one of the most impressive impacts of bariatric surgery is an almost 60%
reduction in cancer mortality, prevention of weight gain or successful weight
management may certainly go a long way in reducing the risk of dying of this
horrible disease.
US National Cancer Institute, 2008
The study, by researchers
at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, found that men and women who were
severely obese were 45 percent more likely than normal-weight adults to develop
pancreatic cancer over five years. Abdominal obesity, in particular, was linked
to a higher risk of the disease among women.
Researches offered the
explanation on the fact by establishing the logical link from obesity to
pancreatic cancer through type 2 diabetes. In type 2 diabetes, the body loses
its sensitivity to the blood sugar-regulating hormone insulin, which is
produced by the pancreas; this leads to persistently high levels of insulin in
the body. Insulin has growth-promoting effects, and it's thought that too much
of the hormone may encourage pancreatic tumor cells to grow and spread.
Dr. Rachael
Stolzenberg-Solomon, leading the study, reported: "Our results, as well as
those of others, may have important implications for cancer prevention
particularly related to the avoidance of obesity".
The findings are based on
data collected from more than 300,000 U.S. adults who were cancer-free and
between the ages of 50 and 71 at the outset. Over roughly five years, 654
developed pancreatic cancer. In general, the risk of the cancer climbed in
tandem with body mass index, a measure of weight in relation to height.
Severely obese study participants were at greatest risk. Among women, the odds
of developing pancreatic cancer also increased along with waist size.
Sweden's Karolinska Institute, 2008
The specific risk of
pancreatic cancer for women as factor of being overweight has been investigated
by Juhua Luo of Sweden's Karolinska Institute and colleagues. "We found
that the risk of developing pancreatic cancer was significantly raised in obese
postmenopausal women who carry most of their excess weight around the
stomach," Dr. Luo said in a statement. "Obesity is a growing and
largely preventable problem, so it's important that women are aware of this
major increase in risk."
As part of a large study
known as the Women's Health Initiative, Luo and colleagues followed more than
138,000 menopausal women in the United States for more than seven years to
investigate the links between obesity and pancreatic cancer. They found that
251 women developed the disease, and of these, 78 had the highest waist-to-hip
ratios. After factoring in other risk factors, this was 70 percent more than
the 34 women with the lowest excess stomach weight who got pancreatic cancer.
University of Texas, 2008
While positive correlation
between obesity and risk of pancreatic cancer development has been validated by
multiple studies, the research, performed by Donghui Li, PhD, from the
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, has allowed to look
on this fact from slightly different perspective, offering the novel finding
that putting on excess weight in the teenage years is particularly risky.
The researchers conducted
a case–control study of 841 patients and 754 matched controls, and investigated
the association between pancreatic cancer risk and excess body weight across an
individual's life span. They found a significant association between pancreatic
cancer risk and being overweight between the ages of 14 and 39 years, and being
obese from 20 to 49 years. "Notably, the strongest association between
obesity and pancreatic cancer was seen in those who were overweight or obese
from the ages of 30 to 39 years," they reported.
"The increased risk
of pancreatic cancer with weight gain leveled off for gains after the ages of
40 to 49 years," they add. "The stronger association of the disease
with weight gain in earlier adulthood, as opposed to later adulthood, might be
explained by the longer duration of exposure to cumulative excessive body fat
in the earlier gainers," Dr. Li and colleagues suggest.
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