Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Obese women have around a 40 per cent greater risk of developing seven types of cancer

Obese women have around a 40 per cent greater risk of developing a weight-related cancer in their lifetime than women of a healthy weight, according to new figures* released by Cancer Research UK.

Obesity increases a woman's risk of developing at least seven types of cancer - including bowel, post-menopausal breast, gallbladder, womb, kidney, pancreatic and oesophageal cancer.

The new statistics find that obese women have around a one in four risk of developing a cancer linked to weight in their lifetime.

In a group of 1,000 obese women, 274 will be diagnosed with a bodyweight-linked cancer in their lifetime, compared to 194 women diagnosed in a group of 1,000 healthy weight women.

There are different ways that obesity could increase the risk of cancer, and one possibility is that it is linked to a fat cell's production of hormones -especially oestrogen. This hormone is thought to fuel the development of cancer.

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