Body-mass index and incidence of cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective observational studies.

By A. Renehan, M. Tyson, Matthias Egger, R. Heller, Marcel Zwahlen. The Lancet, 2008

5,082 citations recorded by the source corpus.

BACKGROUND Excess bodyweight, expressed as increased body-mass index (BMI), is associated with the risk of some common adult cancers. We did a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the strength of associations between BMI and different sites of cancer and to investigate differences in these associations between sex and ethnic groups. METHODS We did electronic searches on Medline and Embase (1966 to November 2007), and searched reports to identify prospective studies of incident cases of 20 cancer types. We did random-effects meta-analyses and meta-regressions of study-specific incremental estimates to determine the risk of cancer associated with a 5 kg/m2 increase in BMI. FINDINGS We analysed 221 datasets (141 articles), including 282,137 incident cases. In men, a 5 kg/m2 increase in BMI was strongly associated with oesophageal adenocarcinoma (RR 1.52, p<0.0001) and with thyroid (1.33, p=0.02), colon (1.24, p<0.0001), and renal (1.24, p <0.0001) cancers. In women, we recorded strong associations between a 5 kg/m2 increase in BMI and endometrial (1.59, p<0.0001), gallbladder (1.59, p=0.04), oesophageal adenocarcinoma (1.51, p<0.0001), and renal (1.34, p<0.0001) cancers. We noted weaker positive associations (RR <1.20) between increased BMI and rectal cancer and malignant melanoma in men; postmenopausal breast, pancreatic, thyroid, and colon cancers in women; and leukaemia, multiple myeloma, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in both sexes. Associations were stronger in men than in women for colon (p<0.0001) cancer. Associations were generally similar in studies from North America, Europe and Australia, and the Asia-Pacific region, but we recorded stronger associations in Asia-Pacific populations between increased BMI and premenopausal (p=0.009) and postmenopausal (p=0.06) breast cancers. INTERPRETATION Increased BMI is associated with increased risk of common and less common malignancies. For some cancer types, associations differ between sexes and populations of different ethnic origins. These epidemiological observations should inform the exploration of biological mechanisms that link obesity with cancer.

Subfields: Epidemiology, Oncology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/211db9586c3f210c73ba5351e3b31209bb2b9601

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Epidemiology

In Oncology

Citations in the corpus

Effect of obesity on survival of women with breast cancer: systematic review and meta-analysis (2010, background): “In post-menopausal women, obesity, as measured by body mass index (BMI) or waist–hip ratio (WHR), is a risk factor for the development of new cases of breast cancer [1].”
Epidemiology and risk factors for kidney cancer (2010, background): “by 24% for men and 34% for women for every 5 kg/m 2 increase in BMI”
Erratum to: Endometrial Cancer (2017, background): “Type 1 endometrial cancers are associated with prolonged unopposed estrogen exposure, therefore with the following risk factors: estrogen replacement therapy; tamoxifen therapy for breast cancer; polycystic ovarian syndrome; estrogen producing ovarian tumors; obesity (conversion of androgen to estro”
Obesity and Diabetes: The Increased Risk of Cancer and Cancer-Related Mortality. (2015, background): “There was again an inverse association between lung cancer risk and BMI in men and women (161).”
Impact of intermittent fasting on health and disease processes (2016, neutral): “Weight control is likely to reduce the incident risk of thirteen cancers which have been linked to obesity (Renehan et al., 2008), although the role of weight management after diagnosis on the outcome of obesity related cancers is not known (WCRF, 2014; Goodwin et al., 2015).”
Leisure-time physical activity and risk of 26 types of cancer in 1.44 million adults (2016, neutral): “44 million participants (median [range] age, 59 [19-98] years; 57%”
Obesity and adverse breast cancer risk and outcome: mechanistic insights and strategies for intervention (2017, background): “This association was stronger in women from Asia-Pacific than in those from North America, Europe, and Australia.(18) Furthermore, an increase in BMI after age 18 years is associated with an elevated risk of postmenopausal ERpositive/PR-positive breast cancer.”
Pathophysiology of human visceral obesity: an update. (2013, background): “More recent data have shown strong evidence for an increased risk of colorectal, esophageal, kidney, and pancreatic cancer in both sexes in addition to thyroid cancer in men and endometrial, gallbladder, and postmenopausal breast cancer in women (456).”