Being obese as a teen or in your 20s could lead to pancreatic cancer. And if the patient is obese at the time of diagnosis, survival rates go down. That's the finding of a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Before Roger Giles was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he weighed 270 pounds.
"Living in southern Louisiana, it's high fat and fried foods," said Giles.
Giles's former obesity may have played a role in his illness.
"Increasing evidence suggests that there is association between being overweight and obesity with the risk of pancreatic cancer," said Dr. Donghui Li, University of Texas, Anderson Cancer Center.
It is estimated that nearly 27 percent of all cases of pancreatic cancer are due in part to excess weight. Li and her colleagues at the University of Texas wanted to see if the age at which someone became overweight or obese had any impact.
"She was able to ask patients to remember their weight starting in teenage years, all the way up to their diagnosis, or about a year before their diagnosis, and then related that information to the risk of pancreatic cancer," said Dr. James Abbruzzese, University of Texas.
The study compared information from more than 800 patients at the cancer center with 754 healthy individuals. It found that being overweight or obese a year prior to diagnosis decreased a patient's survival time and being overweight or obese as a teen or younger adult significantly increased an individual's risk of the cancer later in life.
"Weight control at early age, at young adulthood, is most important to reduce the risk of cancer," said Abbruzzese.
Looking back, Giles would have changed habits.
It's a terrible price to pay for being overweight. Study authors say further research into what happens internally when individuals are overweight and how that might put them at higher risk for diseases is critical.
The study appears in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.
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