Two separate studies released today shed a little more light on the link between obesity and cancer. Studies have tied obesity to increased risk of pancreatic cancer, but new findings suggest that weight control early in life is especially important. Obesity in early adulthood is associated with both increased risk and earlier onset of pancreatic cancer, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows. In fact, overweight teens are twice as likely to develop pancreatic cancer later in life than similar adults who had never been overweight. Researchers said the results held independently of a patient’s diabetes status –- meaning that even though early obesity is associated with diabetes, and diabetes is associated with pancreatic cancer, the relationship between early obesity and pancreatic cancer stands on its own, too. Findings also show that obesity later in life is associated with a lower survival rate for pancreatic cancer patients. Meanwhile, a study to be published in the Lancet Oncology in July affirms that

bariatric surgery could lower the risk of cancer — but only in women. Last year, we noted that a Canadian study had shown a dramatically lower risk of cancer in obese patients who had weight-loss surgery, compared with those who didn’t. Interestingly, the analysis of research in the Lancet Oncology study showed no relationship between decreased cancer incidence and weight loss or reduced energy intake –- it was just the surgery that was associated with the reduction. The authors say the results might be dependent on some other mechanism of the weight-loss surgery. An accompanying editorial notes that since the result only applies to women, the cancer-prevention effects are likely for hormone-sensitive malignancies like breast and endometrial cancers. In obesity-related cancers that are more common in men –- colon, rectal, kidney -– effects are slower to manifest, so the effects of weight-loss surgery could just take longer to show up.

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Research Piles Up on Links Between Cancer and Obesity