Metabolic syndrome tied to risk of 11 cancers

Eleven different malignancies seem to be correlate with metabolic syndrome (MS), as well as with the presence of MS components, reports a recent study.

Researchers conducted a case-control analysis of 183,248 patients who had been diagnosed with incident cancer between January 2008 and December 2017. Each patient was matched to healthy controls according to age, sex, and inclusion date. The primary outcome was the link between MS and cancer risk, as well as the potential effect of having zero, one, or two MS components.

MS, defined as the presence of ≥3 components, was a significant risk factor for colorectal (odds ratio [OR], 1.28, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.23–1.32), liver (OR, 1.93, 95 percent CI, 1.84, 95 percent CI, 1.74–2.14), and kidney (OR, 1.84, 95 percent CI, 1.69–2.00) cancer, according to adjusted conditional logistic regression analysis.

Of all cancers assessed, the effect of MS was strongest for postmenopausal (OR, 2.46, 95 percent CI, 2.20–2.74) and premenopausal (OR, 2.14, 95 percent CI, 1.74–2.65) cancer. MS also significantly aggravated the risks of pancreatic, thyroid, bladder, lung, and postmenopausal breast cancers, as well as non-Hodgkin lymphoma and leukaemia. No such effects were reported for Hodgkin lymphoma and prostate cancer.

Moreover, an increasing number of MS components showed a significant positive interaction with cancer risk for most malignancies, except for prostate, lung, and premenopausal cancers, as well as non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“The risk of most cancers increased with the number of MS components present in an individual,” the researchers said. “Our results indicate that prevention strategies targeting individual components of MS could reduce the risk of several cancer types.”