Severe obesity appears to increase risk of ovarian cancer

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Tuesday, October 10, 2006 2:25 am Email this article
Severe obesity, that is having a body mass index (BMI) of 35 or more, appears to increase a woman's risk of ovarian cancer by 55 percent according to a study from the National Cancer Institute.

The increased risk did not quite reach statistical significance, which simply means there was more than a 5 percent chance that this increase was due to random chance.

(It appears to me that there was somewhere between a 6-8 percent chance that it was due to random chance, which means that there was a 92-94 percent chance that the increased risk was associated with severe obesity. Good enough for me.)

Being overweight or obese, that is having a BMI of 25-34.9, did not increase the risk.

REFERENCE

Lacey JV, Leitzmann M, Brinton LA, Lubin J, Sherman M, Schatzkin A, Schairer C. Weight, height, and body mass index and risk for ovarian cancer in a cohort study. Ann Epidemiol. 2006 Oct 4.

AUTHOR’S CORRESPONDENCE

Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics
National Cancer Institute
Rockville, MD

Articles on the same subject can be found here:

• Cancer, Ovarian