Obesity increases a woman's risk for developing ovarian cancer, a recent study suggests.
Researchers have investigated the link between these two factors for years, but this study is the first to show that being overweight is a "probable" cause.
The American Institute for Cancer Research and World Cancer Research Fund released the report, and in it the study's team notes that the greater risk is slight. A 5-point increase in a woman's body-mass index (BMI) -the ratio of a person's height and weight- raises her risk of ovarian cancer 6 percent. As a point of reference, a BMI above 25 is considered overweight, while a BMI over 30 is obese, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Obesity is already linked to a variety of tumors, including those of the colon, uterus, esophagus, kidney, gallbladder, thyroid and pancreas, as well as postmenopausal breast cancer, the National Institute of Health continues. And now it seems ovarian cancer can be added to the long list.
About 22,000 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year and it kills more than 14,000 the American Cancer society reports.
The American Institute for Cancer Research stresses the importance of maintaining a healthy weight because it could prevent one in five of these cancers, or more than 120,000 a year. But losing weight is not a full proof way of avoiding cancer. There are other factors, sometimes unavoidable, that come into play.
However, women may welcome the news, because "this is something you can do something about. You can't change who your mother was or whether your mother had ovarian cancer," Alexi Wright, medical oncologist at the Susan F. Smith Center for Women's Cancer at Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, said according to USA Today. "There is overwhelming evidence that exercise and avoiding obesity improves lots of health conditions."
Some of those conditions also include diabetes and heart disease.
But it does give one way women can try to reduce their risk.
"While this is no magic bullet, any way to reduce the risk of this deadly cancer, especially something like keeping a healthy weight, which has a role in overall cancer prevention, is worth acting on," the American Cancer Society's Alpa Patel said.
