ArticleEvolutionary applications2019
Obesity paradox in cancer: Is bigger really better?
Article in Evolutionary applications, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- Survival Outcomes of Patients With Colorectal Cancer After Primary Surgery: A Population-Based Study in Hainan, China.Cancer medicine · 2026Article
- New-onset prediabetes/diabetes worsens overall survival in patients with cancer: A real-world retrospective cohort study.Diabetes, obesity & metabolism · 2026Article
- Collider Bias Is an Insufficient Explanation for the Inverse Obesity Paradox in Prostate Cancer.Cancer medicine · 2025Article
- Association of systemic inflammation with the obesity paradox in cancer: results from multi-cohort studies.Inflammation research : official journal of the European Histamine Research Society ... [et al.] · 2024Article
- Association of Body Mass Index with Survival in Asian Patients with Colorectal Cancer.Cancer research and treatment · 2022Article
- The impact of body mass index on prognosis in patients with colon carcinoma.International journal of colorectal disease · 2022Article
- The ambiguous role of obesity in oncology by promoting cancer but boosting antitumor immunotherapy.Journal of biomedical science · 2022Review
- Synergizing Mouse and Human Studies to Understand the Heterogeneity of Obesity.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2021Review
- Association of BMI, comorbidities and all-cause mortality by using a baseline mortality risk model.PloS one · 2021Article
- Extracellular Vesicles Derived From Colorectal Cancer Affects CD8 T Cells: An Analysis Based on Body Mass Index.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2020Article
- Obesity paradox in cancer: Is bigger really better?Evolutionary applications · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors at 6 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
While obesity is widely recognized as a risk factor for cancer, survival among patients with cancer is often higher for obese than for lean individuals. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain this "obesity paradox," but no consensus has yet emerged. Here, we propose a novel hypothesis to add to this emerging debate which suggests that lean healthy persons present conditions unfavorable to malignant transformation, due to powerful natural defenses, whereby only rare but aggressive neoplasms can emerge and develop. In contrast, obese persons present more favorable conditions for malignant transformation, because of several weight-associated factors and less efficient natural defenses, leading to a larger quantity of neoplasms comprising both nonaggressive and aggressive ones to regularly emerge and progress. If our hypothesis is correct, testing would require the consideration of the raw quantity, not the relative frequency, of aggressive cancers in obese patients compared with lean ones. We also discuss the possibility that in obese persons, nonaggressive malignancies may prevent the subsequent progression of aggressive cancers through negative competitive interactions between tumors.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.