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One in 20 cancers in post menopausal women can be blamed on being overweight or obese. If results from following the health of a million women for up to seven years are right then one in 20 cancers in post menopausal women can be blamed on being overweight or obese and being fat may play a role in half of certain tumours of the oesophagus (the gullet) and the uterus. The chances of dying from these cancers were similarly linked to overweight and obesity. This is a group of over a million women in Britain who were aged between 50 and 60 when the follow-up began. The researchers looked at 17 different cancers and compared them to the women's body mass index - a measure of fatness. Cancers which showed a significant link to overweight and obesity. included in descending order, uterus, oesophagus, kidney, leukaemia, post menopausal breast cancer, multiple myeloma, pancreas, non Hodgkin's lymphoma and ovarian cancer and maybe bowel cancer in pre menopausal women. So menopause does make a difference. No-one knows why body fat may be linked to cancer rates and there may be a few things going on such as the hormones produced by fat cells. It would be an act of faith, though, to assume that losing weight brings your cancer risk down. That's also unknown.
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