Big belly raises a woman's pancreatic cancer risk

Where a person carries their extra weight may influence their risk of pancreatic cancer. People - especially women - with more fat around their waistline are at increased risk of the deadly disease, according to a study published today.

The study also confirms that the risk of pancreatic cancer climbs in tandem with body mass index, or BMI, a standard measure of weight in relation to height used to gauge obesity.

While a link between obesity and pancreatic cancer has been suggested, studies looking at the association have yielded mixed results, Dr. Alan A. Arslan of the New York University School of Medicine in New York City and colleagues note in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

To further investigate the relationship, they analyzed data on 2,170 people with pancreatic cancer and 2,209 people without the disease from the National Cancer Institute Pancreatic Cancer Cohort Consortium (PanScan), a project launched in 2006 to identify genes associated with the disease as well as lifestyle, environmental, and genetic risk factors.

For all study subjects, there was a positive link between increasing BMI and increasing risk for pancreatic cancer. Overall, the researchers found, people in the top fourth based on their BMI were at 33 percent higher risk of pancreatic cancer than those in the bottom fourth.

According to the American Cancer Society, the average person has about a 1.4 percent chance of developing pancreatic cancer during their lifetime.

When Arslan's team looked at weight categories, they found women who were overweight were at 31 percent increased risk of pancreatic cancer compared to normal weight women, while the risk for obese women was 61 percent greater.

Having a large waist in relation to one's hips also upped risk, most strongly for women. The women with the biggest waist-to-hip ratio were at 87 percent increased risk of pancreatic cancer.

"These findings, along with those from previous studies, strongly support the role of obesity in pancreatic cancer development," Arslan and his colleagues conclude.

SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, May 10, 2010.