Women at Risk

The Johns Hopkins Ovarian Cancer Center of Excellence acknowledges and thanks Aventis, Genzyme, GlaxoSmithKline, Oncotech, Ortho Biotech, and The Pam McDonald Fund for their support of this website through provision of unrestricted educational grants.

The Johns Hopkins Ovarian Cancer Center of Excellence

Women at Risk

Obesity Considerably Increases Risk of Ovarian Cancer

Older women at risk of almost 80%

If, a couple of days ago, we saw the toll the ever increasing obesity rate is taking on the British NHS, a new study comes to link it to yet another worrying aspect: cancer. A recent research published in the journal Cancer shows that, in older women, obesity increases the risk of ovarian cancer by 80%, as opposed to women of healthy weight.

For almost seven full years, researchers from the U.S. National Cancer Institute studied approximately 95,000 women to discover that over 300 of them developed ovarian cancer. Of those who had never been on HRT (hormone replacement therapy), their weight increased the chances of getting the fatal disease by almost 80 percent.

While this is not the first time that obesity is linked to certain types of cancers, researchers believe that the link between one and the other is almost irrefutable now. They believe, the British media is reporting, that the adipose tissue holding excess fat around the stomach secrets estrogen, which could stimulate the growth of ovarian cells and thus play a role in the development of this specific type of cancer.

Of course, researchers note, there is also a very strong connection between ovarian cancer and hormone therapy after menopause, in that only for those women who have never been on HRT does their weight count for anything in terms of developing ovarian cancer. The findings of the study are, however, startling, especially as, in the UK alone for instance, more than 6,000 women are diagnosed with it, with over 40 percent of them not making it past the first five years after diagnosis.

At the same time, the obesity rate is soaring, with estimates showing that, in England, more than half of all women will be obese, as opposed to a quarter now. “A lot of people still do not realize how closely obesity is related to cancer. People getting fatter will lead to an increase in the number of cancer cases as surely as night follows day.” Dr. Greg Martin of the World Cancer Research Fund was saying two years ago.

Also then, he warned of a genuine “cancer timebomb” in the UK. Sadly, it seems that things are developing precisely in that direction. “You also have to add into the mix that cancer is largely an older person's disease, and the UK has an ageing population. So if you have an ageing population that is getting more obese, there could be really serious consequences in terms of the number of people getting cancer if we do not act now. It’s a cancer timebomb.” Dr. Martin explained.