According to a new study, being overweight could impact your survival rate if you have ovarian cancer. Researchers have found that obese women don’t do as well as their slimmer counterparts when it comes to battling this difficult and dangerous form of the disease.
The study, which will be published in the October issue of the medical journal Cancer, also noted that obese women face a quicker turnaround when it comes to ovarian cancer recurrence. This isn’t the first time cancer and obesity have collided — being overweight can have a negative impact on a wide range of the disease including colon, breast, and kidney cancers. Previous studies have shown that obesity adds in another risk factor when it comes to surviving cancer.
According to the study’s senior researcher, Dr. Andrew Li, gynecologic oncologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, “If women develop ovarian cancer and they are obese, they have a lower chance of survival than those who are overweight or normal weight.” This is not good news for women who are already facing a disease that is hard enough to beat if they are fit and trim, let alone obese and inactive.
The study set out to assess just how weight acted as an independent factor in a woman’s chance of surviving ovarian cancer. The researchers looked at how obesity boosted a person’s chances of suffering from the disease in a more difficult way. They also looked at how greater the threat of a relapse of the disease or even death potentially stood for obese women with the disease.
Looking at data on 216 women with ovarian cancer, the researchers evaluated the link between the disease and obesity, and the biology of the tumors including the health outcomes. All of the women involved had the most common form of the disease — epithelial ovarian cancer — where tumors occur on the surface of the ovary. All the women in the study also had surgery for their condition at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center between 1996 and 2003.
Among the participants, eight percent were underweight, 50% were at a healthy weight, 26% were considered to be overweight, and 16% were obese (where they had a body mass index, or BMI, of 30 or higher). The researchers found that the women who had a BMI that was 25 (which borders on the overweight/obese margin) experienced a shorter cancer-free survival time period than women who were below the 25 mark.
Plus, when a participant’s BMI climbed higher, so did her chances of dying from the cancer. Keep in mind that this was for women who were in the advanced stages of cancer and the overall rate of survival did not differ much between women with ideal weights and those with obese weights.
What the researchers found was that fat cells came into play. They believe that these cells secrete a hormonal factor that actually causes cancer cells to behave in a more aggressive manner. On top of that, the hormonal secretion also makes cancer cell death via traditional chemotherapy treatment more difficult to achieve.
The researchers noted that more studies are needed to further evaluate and validate the findings, but that they are significant enough to take notice. Plus, it’s just another reason to maintain a healthy weight.
Next Post:
I don’t want you to miss out on these very powerful secrets Previous Post:
Groundbreaking Study Could Lead to Testing for Addiction RiskTags: obesity, ovarian cancer
