April 26, 2024

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The relationship between weight change and bowel cancer is seriously underestimated!

The relationship between weight change and bowel cancer is seriously underestimated!



 

The relationship between weight change and bowel cancer is seriously underestimated! Study reveals for the first time that being overweight 8-10 years ago is associated with up to double the risk of bowel cancer.

Cherish life and stay away from obesity, everyone should understand this truth. But in the eyes of scientists and doctors, the relationship between overweight and obesity and a specific disease is actually shrouded in a lot of fog, which is not easy to say.

 

For example, a recent analysis published by German researchers on JAMA Network Open has slightly refreshed the cognition of singular cakes: the analysis of more than 6,000 cases of bowel cancer patients and more than 5,000 healthy control groups showed that although On the surface, the obesity rate of bowel cancer patients at the time of diagnosis is slightly lower than that of healthy people, but the presence of overweight/obesity 8-10 years before the diagnosis of bowel cancer will be associated with a 27-109% increase in the risk of colorectal cancer !

 

The researchers believe that previous epidemiological analyzes have underestimated the obesity-related “doubling of bowel cancer risk”, and the impact of obesity may also be masked by weight loss caused by colorectal cancer: patients lose weight in the two years before the diagnosis of bowel cancer ≥2 kg is associated with a 6.5-fold increase in the risk of colorectal cancer [1]!

From this point of view, it is really important to keep an eye on weight changes to prevent bowel cancer. Everyone should work hard not to gain weight, and more importantly, be wary of unexplained thinness.

 

The relationship between weight change and bowel cancer is seriously underestimated!

Screenshot of paper homepage

 

Similar to unhealthy lifestyles such as red meat intake and sedentary life, overweight/obesity has long been recognized as a clear risk factor for colorectal cancer, but some large-sample meta-analyses in recent years have concluded that obesity is “only” associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer About 30% related [2].

 

The German Cancer Research Center team that carried out this analysis believes that the impact of obesity is likely to be underestimated.

On the one hand, because most cohort studies are designed, only participants are required to report baseline weight and analyze the relationship between weight and bowel cancer during the follow-up period. There is a lack of dynamic tracking and risk assessment of weight changes.

 

On the other hand, it takes a certain period of time from the appearance of precancerous lesions to the diagnosis of bowel cancer patients due to clear clinical symptoms or screening. /Obesity status, which interferes with previous studies .

Moreover, ordinary people with limited health and medical knowledge often find it difficult to realize that unexplained weight loss may be risky, which is not conducive to early screening and early diagnosis of cancer.

 

In order to clarify the impact of overweight/obesity and weight loss at the same time, the team of the German Cancer Research Center retrieved the data of the DACHS case-control study in China, and analyzed the data of patients with bowel cancer (n=6434) and control healthy people (n=5453) in the diagnosis or Before enrolling in the study, the body weight data and changes in different time periods (with an interval of 2 years, the longest can be traced back to 12 years ago) , few cohort studies in the past were able to do this.

 

Cohort studies often take years and decades, and it is normal for weight to change.

 

When colon cancer patients and control healthy people were diagnosed or enrolled in the study, the proportions of overweight (30>BMI≥25) /obese (BMI≥30) were 62.1% and 66.0%, respectively. If we only analyze the data at this time, we cannot get The conclusion that overweight/obesity is related to the risk of bowel cancer, but going back along the timeline, the conclusion is completely different:

 

Let’s talk about overweight/obesity first. As can be seen from the trend chart below, overweight in different time periods is not linearly related to the risk of colorectal cancer. Overweight, BMI increased by 5 units or obesity, respectively, are at most 31% higher than the risk of colorectal cancer. % (OR=1.31) , 35% (OR=1.35) and 109% (OR=2.09) correlated .

 

The relationship between weight change and bowel cancer is seriously underestimated!

Overweight Risk Map

 

Weight loss is different. If it occurs within 2 years before the diagnosis or enrollment in the study, it is associated with a 6.5-fold increase in the risk of colorectal cancer. Taking the weight loss ≥ 5% as the standard, the risk is astonishingly 11 times (OR= 11.14 ) ! But the sooner the weight loss occurred, the hazard ratio gradually decreased.

Although the study did not specifically analyze the causes of weight loss, the researchers specifically emphasized in the paper that “involuntary weight loss” requires vigilance .

 

The relationship between weight change and bowel cancer is seriously underestimated!

Weight Loss Risk Map

 

Of course, under the general trend of “the world is getting fatter and fatter”, the incidence of overweight/obesity should be much higher than that of unexplained weight loss.

 

 

 

 

references:

[1]Mandic M, Safizadeh F, Niedermaier T, et al. Association of Overweight, Obesity, and Recent Weight Loss With Colorectal Cancer Risk[J]. JAMA Network Open, 2023, 6(4): e239556.

[2]Zhang C, Cheng Y, Luo D, et al. Association between cardiovascular risk factors and colorectal cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies[J]. EClinicalMedicine, 2021, 34: 100794.

The relationship between weight change and bowel cancer is seriously underestimated!

(source:internet, reference only)


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