ArticleBMC medicine2021
Metabolic signatures of greater body size and their associations with risk of colorectal and endometrial cancers in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.
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 24 papers.
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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
24 citing papers in PubMed, 50 citations in OpenAlex.
- Blood-based obesity biomarkers and their relevance for disease risk.Nature reviews. Endocrinology · 2026Review
- Adiposity and cancer: epidemiology, mechanisms and future perspectives.Nature metabolism · 2026Review
- Adiposity, metabolites and endometrial cancer risk: inference from combinations of Mendelian randomization and observational analyses.BMC cancer · 2025Observational
- Sex-stratified metabolic signatures of adiposity indices and their associations with clinical biomarkers in the UK Biobank.EBioMedicine · 2025Article
- Metabolic profile of biodiverse diets in a healthy European cohort.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2025Article
- Can serum metabolic signatures inform on the relationship between healthy lifestyle and colon cancer risk?Cancer & metabolism · 2025Article
- Identifying Metabolomic Mediators of the Physical Activity and Colorectal Cancer Relationship.Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2025Article
- Metabolite Predictors of Breast and Colorectal Cancer Risk in the Women's Health Initiative.Metabolites · 2024Article
- Metabolomic signatures of inflammation and metabolic dysregulation in relation to colorectal cancer risk.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2024Article
- Identification of predictive biomarkers for endometrial cancer diagnosis and treatment response monitoring using plasma metabolome profiling.Cancer & metabolism · 2023Article
- Characteristics of Cancer Epidemiology Studies That Employ Metabolomics: A Scoping Review.Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2023Article
- Glutamine and amino acid metabolism as a prognostic signature and therapeutic target in endometrial cancer.Cancer medicine · 2023Article
- Metabolomic phenotyping of obesity for profiling cardiovascular and ocular diseases.Journal of translational medicine · 2023Article
- Cross-sectional relationships between general and central adiposity and plasma amino acids in Chinese adults.Amino acids · 2023Article
- A Metabolomic Signature of Obesity and Risk of Colorectal Cancer: Two Nested Case-Control Studies.Metabolites · 2023Article
- Endometrial cancer diagnostic and prognostic algorithms based on proteomics, metabolomics, and clinical data: a systematic review.Frontiers in oncology · 2023Review
- 1α,25(OH)Theranostics · 2023Article
- Pan-cancer analysis of pre-diagnostic blood metabolite concentrations in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.BMC medicine · 2022Article
- Diet and BMI Correlate with Metabolite Patterns Associated with Aggressive Prostate Cancer.Nutrients · 2022Article
- Metabolome-Defined Obesity and the Risk of Future Type 2 Diabetes and Mortality.Diabetes care · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
36 authors at 20 institutions in 10 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe mechanisms underlying the obesity-cancer relationship are incompletely understood. This study aimed to characterise metabolic signatures of greater body size and to investigate their association with two obesity-related malignancies, endometrial and colorectal cancers, and with weight loss within the context of an intervention study.
methodsTargeted mass spectrometry metabolomics data from 4326 participants enrolled in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort and 17 individuals from a single-arm pilot weight loss intervention (Intercept) were used in this analysis. Metabolic signatures of body size were first determined in discovery (N = 3029) and replication (N = 1297) sets among EPIC participants by testing the associations between 129 metabolites and body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) using linear regression models followed by partial least squares analyses. Conditional logistic regression models assessed the associations between the metabolic signatures with endometrial (N = 635 cases and 648 controls) and colorectal (N = 423 cases and 423 controls) cancer risk using nested case-control studies in EPIC. Pearson correlation between changes in the metabolic signatures and weight loss was tested among Intercept participants.
resultsAfter adjustment for multiple comparisons, greater BMI, WC, and WHR were associated with higher levels of valine, isoleucine, glutamate, PC aa C38:3, and PC aa C38:4 and with lower levels of asparagine, glutamine, glycine, serine, lysoPC C17:0, lysoPC C18:1, lysoPC C18:2, PC aa C42:0, PC ae C34:3, PC ae C40:5, and PC ae C42:5. The metabolic signature of BMI (OR
conclusionsObesity is associated with a distinct metabolic signature comprising changes in levels of specific amino acids and lipids which is positively associated with both colorectal and endometrial cancer and is potentially reversible following weight loss.
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