Recent research indicates that obesity makes ovarian cancer deadlier and more likely to recur. According to physician and senior author of the study, Dr. Andrew J. Li of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, maintaining ideal body weight is important for many reasons. This is just one more reason to reduce obesity -- because obese women suffering from advanced ovarian cancer are more likely to die than women at healthy weights. They also suffer recurrences more quickly. On average, women in the study considered overweight or obese saw an average of 16 months before recurrence while those considered underweight or at a healthy weight saw 25 months.Perhaps it's the secretion of adipose tissue that makes tumors less sensitive to chemotherapy. Li said there are ideas on the table -- and his team are looking into them. One fact they feel certain about is that obesity does not increase the chances of contracting ovarian cancer. It just shows the odds of survival are diminished once the disease has been contracted.
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/health/29canc.html?ref=health
The researchers acknowledge that their study, published yesterday in the journal Cancer, has certain weaknesses.
They found that a slightly lower dose of chemotherapy relative to body surface was given to obese patients, and it is possible that this underdosing may have had a role.
In addition, fluid in the body cavity, a symptom of the disease, may have artificially increased the B.M.I. of some patients. And it is possible that other diseases like hypertension and diabetes, more prevalent among the obese, could have decreased survival among those patients.
The study was also limited by its retrospective method and small sample population.
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Perhaps. it's related to this
http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/13/1/166
but study limitations, as mentioned above, are important, too.
Posted at 10:21AM on Aug 30th 2006 by Michelle