Obesity Linked With Increased Ovarian Cancer Risk
June 15, 2006 8:34 p.m. EST
Shaveta Bansal - All Headline News Contributor
New York, NY (AHN) - A study by researchers at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has revealed that childless women and the ones who were overweight in their teens or gain excess pounds later are at increased risks of contracting ovarian cancer.
In the study which involved 2,110 women with and without ovarian cancer, researchers found that the women who were relatively heavy, either in recent years or at the age of 18, were more likely than their thinner peers to develop the disease.
Further, the childless women were 2.5 times more at the risk of getting the disease compared with the thinnest women.
The findings of the study, which are published in journal Cancer, are based on the fact that excess body fat can raise levels of estrogen, as well as male sex hormones called androgens, which may in turn feed ovarian tumor development.
Also, pregnancy and childbirth are believed to lower the risk of ovarian cancer by reducing the number of times a woman ovulates in her lifetime, and therefore her estrogen exposure.
Dr. Julia Greer and her colleagues in their study suggest that in overweight women who've had no children, the effects of excess body fat and "incessant" ovulation combined raise the risk of ovarian cancer.
According to American Cancer Society estimates, Greer noted, at least one third of all cancer deaths in the U.S. each year are attributable to excess weight and obesity.
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