However, scientists cannot yet say that cancer is directly caused by obesity.
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Risk of dying from prostate cancer higher in overweight men, large study finds (in English) covering more than 200,000 men and published in the journal BMC Medicine, Thursday, May 5. The researchers do not establish a direct relationship between the two phenomena, and if it exists, it is not yet explained.
The study, on an unprecedented scale, draws on the database of Biobank, an organization that has been compiling health data in the United Kingdom for years. To which is added a meta-analysis of existing studies concerning the links between the two factors. A total of 2.5 million cases were taken into account.
Their findings confirm their assumptions: the greater the overweight, the higher the risk of dying from prostate cancer. On the other hand, it refutes one of the hypotheses that have existed so far to explain this link, that abdominal fat would be a risk factor. “Wherever the fat is, it doesn’t make a big difference”underlined the epidemiologist Aurora Perez-Cornago, main author of the study.
But if the study rejects this explanation, it does not provide another. What explains the link between prostate cancer and overweight? Does the latter contribute to the body producing molecules favoring this type of cancer? This is the hypothesis that the researchers will explore, without being certain for the moment. But obesity could also be a more general sign of less attention to health. “Suppose, for example, that [les hommes en surpoids] start to go to the bathroom more often at night, a classic symptom of prostate cancer: they may not have the reflex to go see a doctor”advance aurora Perez Cornago.