ArticleEuropean journal of epidemiology2024
Reevaluating the fraction of cancer attributable to excess weight: overcoming the hidden impact of prediagnostic weight loss.
Article in European journal of epidemiology, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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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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
2 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- How Have Researchers Estimated the Impact of Excess Weight on Mortality? A Systematic Review.Current obesity reports · 2026Pooled it
- Excess Weight May Account for More Than 10% of All Cancers: The Underestimated Impact of the Obesity Epidemic.Cancer communications (London, England) · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo evaluate the magnitude of the potential underestimation of the proportion of cancer cases attributable to excess weight, known as population attributable fraction (PAF), due to potential bias from prediagnostic weight loss already present at baseline of cohort studies and to overcome it as much as possible.
methodsData from the UK Biobank cohort participants aged 40-69 without prior cancer diagnosis were analyzed. We assessed the magnitude of associations of excess weight with the incidence of obesity-related cancers combined, and separately for gastrointestinal (GI) and other cancers. Using multivariable Cox proportional hazards models, hazard ratios (HR) and their 95% confidence intervals (CI), and PAFs for excess weight at baseline were estimated for various periods of time after weight measurements.
findingsOf 458,660 participants, 20,218 individuals developed obesity-related cancers during a median 11.0-year follow-up, comprising 8,460 GI, and 11,765 non-GI cancers. PAFs were much higher for cancers occurring more than four years after recruitment than for cancers occurring within the initial four years: 17.7% versus 7.2%, 21.4% versus 11.7% for GI, non-GI and all obesity-related cancers combined, respectively. With respect to total cancer (including cancers with no established relationship with excess weight), PAFs were estimated as 5.1% and 8.8% for the 0-4 and 4-14-year periods of follow-up.
conclusionThe proportion of cancers attributable to excess weight is likely substantially larger than previously estimated based on cohort studies with short follow-up time or no or only limited exclusion of the early years of follow-up from the analyses.
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