WEDNESDAY, Nov. 7 (HealthDay News) -- The risk of 10 different cancers increases as body mass index rises, according to research published online Nov. 6 in BMJ Online First.
Gillian K. Reeves, Ph.D., of the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom, and colleagues analyzed data from the Million Women Study cohort, comprising 1.2 million U.K. women aged 50 to 64 during 1996 to 2001.
During the average follow-up of 5.4 years for cancer incidence and 7.0 years for cancer mortality, there were 45,037 cases of cancer and 17,203 cancer-related deaths. With every 10-unit increase in body mass index the risk of incidence increased for endometrial, kidney, ovarian and pancreatic cancers, adenocarcinoma of the esophagus, leukemia, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, colorectal cancer in premenopausal women and breast cancer in postmenopausal women.
"Among postmenopausal women in the U.K., 5 percent of all cancers (about 6,000 annually) are attributable to being overweight or obese. For endometrial cancer and adenocarcinoma of the esophagus, body mass index represents a major modifiable risk factor; about half of all cases in postmenopausal women are attributable to overweight or obesity," the authors conclude.
"The strongest empirical support for mechanisms to link obesity and cancer risk involves the metabolic and endocrine effects of obesity," Eugenia E. Calle, Ph.D., of the American Cancer Society, writes in an accompanying editorial.
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