ArticleBMC medicine2021
Body mass index and waist circumference in relation to the risk of 26 types of cancer: a prospective cohort study of 3.5 million adults in Spain.
Article in BMC medicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 64 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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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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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
64 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 118 citations in OpenAlex.
- Abnormal body weight and risk of gallbladder cancer: an updated meta-analysis incorporating recent evidence.BMC cancer · 2026Pooled it
- Adiposity and cancer: systematic review and meta-analysis.Nature metabolism · 2026Pooled it
- Body mass index and multiple myeloma: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies.BMC cancer · 2026Pooled it
- Body mass index and cancer risk among adults with and without cardiometabolic diseases: evidence from the EPIC and UK Biobank prospective cohort studies.BMC medicine · 2023Pooled it
- Maternal Body Mass Index, Diabetes, and Gestational Weight Gain and Risk for Pediatric Cancer in Offspring: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.JNCI cancer spectrum · 2022Pooled it
- Cancer incidence in endogenous hypercortisolism.Journal of endocrinological investigation · 2026Article
- BMI-genome interactions regulate global gene expression with emphasis in brain and gut.Cell genomics · 2026Article
- Trends and projections of high body mass index-associated non-hodgkin lymphoma burden (1990-2040): A global burden of disease 2021 analysis.Annals of hematology · 2026Article
- Obesity and Cancer: Mechanisms, Epidemiological Evidence, and Potential Risk Reduction.Journal of obesity & metabolic syndrome · 2026Review
- Distribution patterns and prediction of lymph, hematopoietic and related tissue cancer incidence in Chinese cancer registration areas from 2005 to 2050.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Article
- Combined effect of diabetes and obesity on cancer risk in chronic kidney disease: a nationwide population-based study.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2026Article
- Obesity-associated inflammation and cancer: molecular mechanisms, evidence gaps, and therapeutic opportunities.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Metabolic syndrome promotes endometrial cancer by Oleic acid-mediated polyamine accumulation.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Risk Factors Associated With Incidence of Lung Cancer in Never-Smokers: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.JTO clinical and research reports · 2025Article
- Comparing waist circumference with body mass index on obesity-related cancer risk: a pooled Swedish study.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2025Article
- The global, regional and national burden of three female pelvic cancers attributable to high BMI from 1990 to 2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021 and projection to 2050.The British journal of nutrition · 2025Article
- Dynamic phenotypes of preclinical and clinical obesity in relation to new-onset cancer risk: A longitudinal analysis from the UK biobank.Diabetes, obesity & metabolism · 2025Article
- Associations of body mass index and waist circumference with incidence of overall and of 27 site-specific cancers: a population-based retrospective cohort study.Cancer communications (London, England) · 2025Article
- Anthropometry and the Risk of Breast Cancer in Moroccan Women: A Large Multicentric Case-Control Study.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2025Article
- Ghrelin-induced neuronal NPY promotes brain metastasis in lung cancer patients with low BMI.Nature communications · 2025Article
4 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundA high body mass index (BMI) has been associated with increased risk of several cancers; however, whether BMI is related to a larger number of cancers than currently recognized is unclear. Moreover, whether waist circumference (WC) is more strongly associated with specific cancers than BMI is not well established. We aimed to investigate the associations between BMI and 26 cancers accounting for non-linearity and residual confounding by smoking status as well as to compare cancer risk estimates between BMI and WC.
methodsProspective cohort study with population-based electronic health records from Catalonia, Spain. We included 3,658,417 adults aged ≥ 18 years and free of cancer at baseline between 2006 and 2017. Our main outcome measures were cause-specific hazard ratios (HRs) with 99% confidence intervals (CIs) for incident cancer at 26 anatomical sites.
resultsAfter a median follow-up time of 8.3 years, 202,837 participants were diagnosed with cancer. A higher BMI was positively associated with risk of nine cancers (corpus uteri, kidney, gallbladder, thyroid, colorectal, breast post-menopausal, multiple myeloma, leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma) and was positively associated with three additional cancers among never smokers (head and neck, brain and central nervous system, Hodgkin lymphoma). The respective HRs (per 5 kg/m
conclusionsIn this large Southern European study, a higher BMI was associated with increased risk of twelve cancers, including four hematological and head and neck (only among never smokers) cancers. Furthermore, BMI and WC showed comparable estimates of cancer risk associated with adiposity.
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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.