Obesity in adolescents and cancer risk: causal relationship or epiphenomenon?
Menée en Israël auprès de 2 298 130 adolescents examinés entre 1967 et 2010 et à l'aide de données du registre des cancers, cette étude analyse l'association entre l'indice de masse corporelle mesuré à l'âge de 17 ans et l'incidence du cancer (55 841 cas) ou la mortalité toutes causes confondues chez les participants ayant développé un cancer, en fonction du sexe
Obesity is increasing worldwide in children and adolescents. Furthermore, there has been an alarming increase in the degree of obesity, resulting in extreme obesity in youth. This increase in prevalence and degree of obesity has been linked to increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. In addition to this well-known consequence of adolescent obesity, a further relevant complication has been identified by Ariel Furer and colleagues in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology. To my knowledge, this is the first study to report the overall morbidity and mortality of all cancers in a long-term follow-up (45 years) of a large nationwide representative cohort (more than 2·3 million Israeli adolescents). Body-mass index (BMI) at age 17 years was associated with an increased risk of mortality and morbidity for all cancers (except premenopausal breast and cervical cancer) at age 30 years. It should be highlighted that the risk for later cardiovascular events was higher than for cancer in the same study cohort. The strongest associations between adolescent BMI and specific cancer types were observed for gastrointestinal, breast, and kidney cancers for men and uterus, ovarian, and gastrointestinal cancers among women. These findings must be confirmed in other independent studies in different populations, since cancer risk differs across different ethnicities.
The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology , commentaire, 2019