In a new study from the University of Glasgow, researchers found that a measure of body shape should be used alongside body mass index (BMI) to help determine the risk of obesity-related cancers.
BMI is a simple way of measuring body fat from the weight and height of a person.
But its reliability is often criticized because it does not distinguish fat from muscle, or take into account where body fat is stored or an individual’s sex or age.
Similarly, waist circumference takes into account belly fat, which is linked to several health risks including cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes and cancer, but fails to account for height.
A new metric to measure obesity, called ‘A body shape index’ (ABSI), takes into account an individual’s age, sex, weight, height, and waist circumference—and it may provide a more accurate estimate of cancer risk than BMI.
In the study, the team combined data from 442,614 participants (average age 56 years) from the UK Biobank who were followed for an average of 8 years, during which 36,961 individuals were diagnosed with cancer.
The team found that body shape and BMI predicted different obesity-related cancer risk in adults. Specifically, ABSI was linked with an increased risk for three cancers.
Participants in the highest ABSI tertile were 38% more likely to develop liver cancer, 40% more likely to develop lung cancer, and had a 17% increased risk of bowel cancer.
However, researchers found that high ABSI and high BMI combined were linked with an increased risk for seven different types of cancer—uterine, oesophageal, liver, stomach, kidney, bowel, breast cancer.
For example, participants in the highest ABSI who were also overweight or obese (BMI 25 kg/m2 or over) were at twice the risk of developing uterine cancer than those with the lowest ABSI and normal BMI.
These findings underscore the importance of measuring more than just BMI when predicting cancer risk and suggest that people’s body shape may increase their risk of certain cancers.
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The study was presented at The European Congress on Obesity. One author of the study is Dr. Carlos Celis-Morales.
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