- Obesity is an established risk factor for a number of weight-related cancers.
- New research shows that both metabolically healthy and unhealthy forms of obesity are associated with an increased risk of obesity-related cancers.
- Experts say the study highlights the need to treat conditions such as high blood pressure and high blood sugar levels in people with obesity.
Metabolically healthy and unhealthy forms of obesity are both associated with an increased risk of various obesity-related cancers.
That’s according to an
Researchers looked at the medical records of 797,193 European individuals. They calculated an individual’s metabolic score that comprised blood pressure, plasma glucose, and triglycerides to provide a measure of healthy or unhealthy metabolic status and determined the relative risk for overall and site-specific cancers. Comparisons were made with metabolically healthy people of normal weight.
Combining different metabolic scores and BMIs, the researchers divided the participants into six categories based on their health status:
- Metabolically unhealthy obesity – (nearly 7% of participants)
- Metabolically healthy obesity – (3% of participants)
- Metabolically unhealthy overweight – (15% of participants)
- Metabolically healthy overweight – (nearly 20% of participants)
- Metabolically unhealthy average weight – (12% of participants)
- Metabolically healthy average weight – (42% of participants)
Some of the scientists’ findings included:
- Metabolically unhealthy obesity compared to metabolically healthy normal weight was associated with an increased risk of obesity-related cancers, such as colon, rectal, pancreatic, endometrial, liver, gallbladder, and renal cell cancer. The highest risk was for endometrial, liver, and renal cell cancer.
- Metabolically unhealthy women with obesity, had a 21% increased risk of colon cancer, were three times more likely to have endometrial cancer, and were 2.4…
Read the full article here