According to a new paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine, obesity is linked to 13 types of cancers. People who were overweight or obese had an increased risk for certain cancers, including the benign brain tumor – meningioma. These 13 cancers together account for 42 percent of all new cancer diagnoses.
This study, conducted by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a part of the World Health Organization, also found that the fatter the person, the greater the risk for some cancers.
According to the chairman of the research group, Dr. Graham Colditz, professor of medicine and surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, “it’s hard to say in humans [whether losing weight will reduce the risk], because so few people lose weight and keep it off. But the priority of avoiding weight gain is the first thing we need to address.”