Study Links Early Adult Obesity With Onset Of Pancreatic Cancer

June 23, 2009 8:55 p.m. EST

Houston, TX (AHN) - A new research suggests a relationship between developing pancreatic cancer at an early age and obesity in early adulthood.

The study by researchers from the M.D. Anderson's Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology found that people with excess body mass index (BMI) at a younger age had a higher risk of developing the disease than people who put on weight later in adulthood.

The study found a median age, 64, for people of normal weight who develop pancreatic cancer while heavier people with pancreatic cancer were of the median ages of between 59 and 61.

"This is the first study to explore at which ages excess body weight predisposes an individual to pancreatic cancer," Donghui Li, a professor at M. D. Anderson and the study's corresponding author, said in a statement.

"This is one of the most surprising findings," Li said. "On average, overweight pancreatic cancer patients were diagnosed two to three years earlier, and obese patients were diagnosed five to six years earlier, which underscores the impact of obesity on loss of life - especially in productive years."

"With our epidemiological research, we aimed to demonstrate the relationship between BMI and risk of pancreatic cancer across a patient's life span and determine if there was a time period that specifically predisposes an individual to the disease, as well as the link between BMI and cancer occurrence and overall survival of the disease."

The study is one of the first to look at a patient's BMI throughout his lifetime, rather than just at during adulthood or at the time the disease is diagnosed.

The study was published in the June 24 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths in men and women in the United States, according to an M.D. Anderson press release. The American Cancer Society states more than 42,000 people in the U.S. will be diagnosed with the highly-lethal disease and 35,240 will die from it this year. The five-year survival threshold for pancreatic cancer is less than 5 percent.