Obesity linked to pancreatic cancer

- Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States.  Pancreatic cancer is typically diagnosed late in the disease.  Identifying risk factors for pancreatic cancer is important as there is no generally accepted screening tests for the disease.
· Obesity has been suspected as a possible risk factor for pancreatic cancer.  A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association has clarified that teenage and early adulthood obesity increases the likelihood of developing pancreatic cancer.

· Study authors collected data from 841 patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma and 754 healthy control individuals.
Information was collected from study participants which included height and body weight histories and an interview starting at age 14-19 years of age and covering 10 years of data.  Body mass index was determined by the height and body weight.

· Study authors showed that participants who were overweight from ages 14 to 39 years or obese from ages 20 to 49 years had an associated increase risk of developing pancreatic cancer.  The association between weight and pancreatic cancer was higher in men than in women.  The association was also higher in participants who had smoked in the past.

· Overweight was defined as a Body Mass Index of 25-29.9 and Obese was defined by a Body Mass Index of 30 or greater.

· Pancreatic cancer is a particularly bad type of cancer.  It is difficult to diagnose and treat and there is no generally accepted screening tests for pancreatic cancer.
Clarifying the factors that increase the risk of pancreatic cancer is important and can help us to develop screening programs.
The association between obesity and pancreatic cancer should be further investigated and may provide clues for treating pancreatic cancer.
Cristopher Geiler, MD
June 30th 2009

Reference
JAMA. 2009;301(24):2553-2562.

Posted on June 30, 2009

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