open access: Apr 3 - PLoS Medicine: Ovarian Cancer and Body Size: Individual Participant Meta-Analysis Including 25,157 Women with Ovarian Cancer from 47 Epidemiological Studies

 Published: April 3, 2012

PLoS Medicine: Ovarian Cancer and Body Size: Individual Participant Meta-Analysis Including 25,157 Women with Ovarian Cancer from 47 Epidemiological Studies

Background

Only about half the studies that have collected information on the relevance of women's height and body mass index to their risk of developing ovarian cancer have published their results, and findings are inconsistent. Here, we bring together the worldwide evidence, published and unpublished, and describe these relationships.........

Why Was This Study Done?

To date, there is no definitive information about the relevance of women's height, weight, and body mass index to their subsequent risk of developing ovarian cancer. There have been roughly 50 epidemiological studies of ovarian cancer, but only about half of these studies have published results on the association between body size and ovarian cancer risk, and so far, these findings have been inconsistent. Therefore, the researchers—an international collaboration of researchers studying ovarian cancer—re-analyzed the available epidemiological evidence to investigate the relationship between ovarian cancer risk and adult height, weight, and body mass index, and to examine the consistency of the findings across study designs.

Conclusions

Ovarian cancer is associated with height and, among never-users of hormone therapy, with body mass index. In high-income countries, both height and body mass index have been increasing in birth cohorts now developing the disease. If all other relevant factors had remained constant, then these increases in height and weight would be associated with a 3% increase in ovarian cancer incidence per decade.

Body Mass Index Increases Risk of Colorectal Adenomas in Men With Lynch Syndrome: The GEO Lynch Cohort Study

CONCLUSION Excess body weight increased the risk of incident colorectal adenomas in people with LS (Lynch Syndrome). This increased risk was seen only in men.

Abstract: The role of body mass index, physical activity, and diet in colorectal cancer recurrence and survival: a review of the literature.

"In conclusion, only a paucity of data is available about the effect of dietary and other lifestyle factors on colorectal cancer recurrence and survival. Thus far, no clear conclusions can be drawn. Future studies are warranted, particularly on postdiagnosis BMI and diet."

Body mass index and risk of ovarian cancer (abstract)