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Pancreatic cancer is more lethal in overweight patients before the age of 50, according to a new study.
Scientists at the American Cancer Society have discovered that a BMI equal to or greater than 30 increases the risks that a pancreatic cancer kills a patient by 25%.
Current theories suggest that inflammation related to being overweight can encourage cells to mutate and become cancerous.
Pancreatic cancer is on the rise in recent years – hitting Alex Trebek and claiming the life of Ella Fitzgerald – disconcerting physicians as the leading risk factor, smoking, decline, but the new study suggests that the drug will not go away. obesity could be to blame.
New research suggests that pancreatic cancer is 25% more lethal in people who gain excess weight before the age of 50 – and the sooner people get pressured, the less their fate
Pancreatic cancer is still considered a rare form, but rates have increased in recent years.
"We are puzzled by this increase because smoking – a major risk factor for pancreatic cancer – is declining," said Dr. Eric Jacobs, Scientific Director of the American Cancer Society and co-author of the new study.
Although the pancreas is one of the least understood forms of cancer, smoking is a major and known risk factor.
Still, pancreatic cancer rates continued to rise even as smoking reached a record high in the United States, leaving scientists perplexed and looking for another change likely to spur the trend .
Scientists may have found a possible explanation: the obesity epidemic.
Being overweight is a major risk factor for all kinds of diseases, including six forms of cancer: the uterus, the esophagus, the stomach, the kidneys, the liver, some Brain tumors, pancreatic and colorectal cancers and multiple myeloma.
Research also suggests that being overweight can make these cancers more deadly, and even if these people survive cancer, their quality of life will probably be worse.
Overweight or obese people are up to 150% more likely to develop pancreatic cancer at some point in their lives than those with normal weight.
But obesity is not considered a cause of cancer, but simply as a risk factor.
Smoking, on the other hand, was directly attributed to about a quarter of pancreatic cancer cases.
And yet, as the number of Americans who smoke has decreased by 65% since 1965, the number of pancreatic cancers has increased by 17.4% since 1999.
The new study suggests that the country's tendency to obesity could explain the imbalance.
"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, "says Dr. Jacobs.
But his new study changes that, looking at the overweight that people earn when they are younger.
Dr. Jacobs and his team analyzed data from 963,317 people with no history of cancer from 1982 on to determine whether people who were overweight before age 50 were at increased risk of developing pancreatic cancer.
Between that date and 2014, 8,354 people in the group died of pancreatic cancer.
And those who were overweight earlier in life were more likely to be among the deaths, even though they were not fatally obese.
For example, a person of 5 "7" who was overweight 32 pounds between 30 and 49 years old was at a higher risk of dying from pancreatic cancer than a person with a healthy weight at that age .
If this same person was thin before the age of 50, but that she weighed 32 kg between 50 and 59 years, her risk of death increased by 19% and 14% for overweight people between 60 and and 69 years old.
Thus, earlier in life a person was gaining extra pounds, plus this weight gain increased the risk of dying from the disease difficult to catch.
According to these results, Dr. Jacobs estimated that excess weight is the determining factor of 28% of pancreatic cancer deaths among those born between 1970 and 1974.
In contrast, he estimates that only 15 deaths occurring in the pancreas in people born in the 1930s, when obesity was much less prevalent.
Overweight already increases the risk of developing cancer in general – and pancreatic cancer in particular – by 20%, so the results of the new study underline the crucial importance of a healthy weight, especially earlier in life. life.
"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, which would also help prevent many other diseases. "said Dr. Jacobs. I said.
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