Obesity, especially when accompanied by stressful environments, is known to cause a variety of health problems and increase one’s risk of developing potentially lethal diseases such as cancer. Studies have shown that 40% of diagnosed cancer patients were obese or overweight.
Breast cancer is the number one form of cancer among females and, given it was diagnosed early, it has a high survival rate of 86-99%. However, breast cancer survivors are 17% more likely to develop subsequent cancer, although the connection to obesity was rarely considered.
In order to obtain additional data on this matter, a team from Denver conducted comprehensive research involving 6481 women. They gathered initial information from the existing databases and tumor registries in order to calculate the BMI of the patients who participated in the study.
The obtained results showed that second-cancer risk increases simultaneously with BMI i.e. if your BMI goes up by 5 units, you will have a 5% greater chance to develop cancer again. This data will provide a foundation for further research on the connection between body weight and cancer.
More specifically, a 5-unit increase leads to a 13% increase in the risk of developing some type of obesity-related cancer (e.g., oesophageal adenocarcinoma) and a 15% increase in developing second breast cancer. The authors emphasized a need for additional research on this topic and the importance its results could have for cancer prevention.
