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Although pancreatic cancer is relatively rare, accounting for just over 3% of all new cancer cases, it is a type of extremely deadly cancer. In the United States, pancreatic cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death, after lung cancer and colorectal cancer, and is expected to cause approximately 46,000 deaths in 2019.
"Pancreatic cancer rates have been steadily increasing since the early 2000s," said lead author, Eric J. Jacobs (American Cancer Society, Georgia, USA). "We are puzzled by this increase as smoking – a major risk factor for pancreatic cancer – is declining."
"An increase in weight in the US population is a likely suspect, but previous studies have shown that excess weight is linked only to a relatively small increase in risk, which does not seem not important enough to fully explain recent increases in pancreatic cancer rates, "said Jacobs. continued.
In this study, researchers wanted to know if excess weight measured earlier in adulthood could be more strongly related to pancreatic cancer risk than excess weight measured at an age more advanced.
The researchers examined data from 963,317 US adults with no history of cancer and enrolled in a national cancer mortality study begun in 1982 and attended by participants until 2014; the Cancer Prevention Study II of the American Cancer Society. At the beginning of the study, all participants indicated their weight and height. Some participants were just 30, while others were between 70 and 80 years old. The body mbad index (BMI) was then calculated from this information.
During the follow-up period, 8,354 participants died of pancreatic cancer. As expected, a higher BMI was badociated with an increased risk of death from pancreatic cancer, but this increased risk was greater for early-stage BMI. Jacobs noted that the study focused only on deaths from pancreatic cancer, but that the disease is almost always fatal and the results should be similar to those of new pancreatic cancer diagnoses.
The findings suggest that being overweight could increase the risk of death from pancreatic cancer more than previously thought. In addition, the researchers found that the new generations were reaching their early age with more overweight than previous generations. This indicates that being overweight will explain a greater proportion of pancreatic risk in the future.
It is interesting to note that Jacobs estimates that 28% of pancreatic cancer deaths among Americans born between 1970 and 1974 will be due to being overweight, compared with only 15% of Americans born in the 1930s, who are much less likely to be obese at a young age. . Thus, it is important to prevent excessive weight gain before middle age to reduce pancreatic cancer rates.
"Our results strongly suggest that, to stop and possibly reverse recent increases in pancreatic cancer rates, we will need to better prevent excessive weight gain in children and younger adults, a performance that would also help prevent many more. diseases, "concluded Jacobs. .
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