Being obese puts you at risk of 11 types of cancer

OBESITY strongly increases the risk of developing 11 types of cancer, a major study has revealed.

Being overweight is probably linked to many other forms of the illness but so far there is not enough evidence, researchers say. Types linked to obesity include breast, oesophagus, stomach, bowel, rectum, biliary tract system, pancreas, womb, ovary, kidney and the blood cancer myeloma.

Researchers from Imperial College London calculated that men’s risk of develop- ing biliary tract cancer increases by up to 56 per cent for every 5kg gained in weight.

For women, the risk of womb cancer rises by 21 per cent for every 0.1 point increase in hip to waist ratio. The findings are particularly concerning as a quarter of adults and a fifth of 11-year-olds are classed as obese.

The research, published in the British Medical Journal, highlighted previous figures showing that up to 25,000 cancer cases in the UK could be prevented each year if everyone was a healthy weight.

It looked at 204 existing studies which examined the link between obesity and cancer. Dr Panagiota Mitrou, of the World Cancer Research Fund, which funded the study, said: ‘This further emphasises the huge role that obesity plays in increasing cancer risk. After not smoking, being a healthy weight is the most important thing people can do to reduce their cancer risk.’

Young adults face a bowel cancer ‘time bomb’ due to unhealthy diets and lack of exercise. Millennials – those born around 1990 – are twice as likely to develop tumours of the large intestine and four times as likely to develop rectal cancer as those born in 1950, the American Cancer Society found.

Until now the cancers have mainly been found in the elderly. While the figures are based on US patients, bowel cancer is also on the rise among Britons aged 25 to 49.