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According to a new study, obesity can double the risk of several cancers and was found to be linked with a number of less common forms of the disease. An analysis of 144 published studies incorporating nearly 300,000 men and women also looks at how gender affects the relationship between obesity and cancer.

The study reports specifically on 20 forms of cancer and demonstrates an association with less common forms of cancer that wasn’t evident before. These include: adult leukaemia, multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma for both men and women. The study authors observed what happened to people whose BMI increased from ‘normal’ to ‘overweight’ or from ‘overweight’ to ‘obese’. They found that the risk of thyroid cancer in men rose by a third and went up to 24% for colon and kidney cancers. For women who went from normal to overweight, the risk of gall bladder cancer rose 59% and the risk of kidney cancer went up 34%.

This association between cancer and obesity was found across Europe, Asia and North America.

Source: Reuters, 15 February 2008