High BMI And Diabetes Are Responsible For New Cancer Cases, Lancet Study

A new study in the medical journal Lancet states that diabetes and a high BMI (more than 25kg/m2) are to blame for 5.6% of the new cancer cases around the world. Published in the Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, it analyzed as many as 792600 cases and found that 18 types of cancers in 544300 cases were due to a high BMI.

The number of cancer cases due to high BMI is equivalent to the number of cases caused due to diabetes which is 280100. BMI is calculated in terms of a person's body weight in kilograms divided by square of his or her height in metres. This is the standard measure of body weight recognized all over the world for determining obesity.

Also read: How To Calculate Your Body Mass Index (BMI)

The study revealed that 24.5% of the 7.66 lakh new liver cancer cases and 38.4% of the 3.17 new endometrial cancer cases were due to a high BMI and diabetes. And all these were attributed to the increased incidence of these diseases from 1980 to 2002.

Why the study is relevant to India is because 62 million people in the country are dealing with diabetes here which is why India is known as the diabetes capital of the world.

Also read: Diet Instructions For Patients With Diabetes

The BMI cut-off standards have now been lowered from 25 kg/m2 to 22kg/m2 globally. Therefore, Indians are more prone to truncal obesity which further increases the risk of such diseases. The Central Bureau of Health Intelligence released a report which stated that India had 1057204 cancer cases in 2012. And in 2016-17, they recorded 14.5 lakh cancer cases in the country.

Researchers from the Imperial College in London, the University of Kent and the International Agency for Research on cancer analyzed the increase in the number of cancer cases in 175 countries from 1980 to 2002 for the Lancet study on the basis of the incidence of BMI and diabetes. The Lancet is one of the oldest and most well-known general medical journals of the world.