Obesity in Young Adulthood May Raise Pancreatic Cancer Risk

Obesity is known to increase the risk of developing pancreatic cancer, a particularly aggressive type of cancer. But a new study suggests the risk is greatest among people who were already overweight during their teenage years or obese during their 20s and 30s.

Adults who were overweight as teens were twice as likely as similar adults who had never been overweight to develop pancreatic cancer later in life, and people who were obese as young adults were at more than twice the risk of adults who had never been obese, the study found.

“That’s an important finding, because it tells us that weight control at a younger age is really important if we want to reduce the risk of this disease,” said Donghui Li, a professor of cancer medicine at the University of Texas and an author of the new study.

The paper, to be published on Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, compared 841 pancreatic cancer patients with 754 healthy people matched by age, race and sex. Personal interviews were done to obtain detailed histories of the participants’ height and weight at each age period, as well as information about alcohol use, smoking and family and personal medical backgrounds.

Smoking and diabetes also increased the risk of pancreatic cancer, with obesity accounting for 27 percent of cases and smoking for one-quarter of all cases. “Diabetes is a risk factor, but even without diabetes, obesity increases the risk,” Dr. Li said.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/health/24cancer.html?ref=health