A new study suggests that being overweight in adolescence is linked to a greater risk of bowel cancer later in life, according to BBC News.
Researchers found that overweight or obese teenagers are twice as more likely to be at risk of developing bowel cancer in middle age compared to their thinner peers, according to the U.K. publication The Belfast Telegraph.
“Late adolescence marks the transition from childhood to adulthood and is a period of accelerated growth, especially among men, thus this period may represent a critical window,” wrote the researchers of Orebro University Hospital in Sweden and Harvard University.
“It is important that we understand the role of exposures in childhood and adolescent in the development of colorectal cancer. In fact, the strong association observed between adolescent obesity and early-to-mid-life colorectal cancer, couples with the increasing prevalence of adolescent obesity, may shed light on the increase in colorectal cancer incidence among young adults.”
For the study, researchers reportedly analyzed the records of 240,000 men born between 1952 and 1956 who had to undergo an assessment for the Swedish military during their late teens.
While 81 percent of the participants the researchers studied were of normal weight, 1.5 percent reportedly fell under the overweight group (those with a BMI of 27.5 to 30) while 1 percent were obese.
Another analysis of the men’s health about 35 years later reportedly found that 885 participants had been diagnosed with bowel cancer, with researchers finding that the 1.5 percent that fell under the overweight group were at a 2.08 higher risk of developing the condition while obese men were 2.38 times more likely.
“This finding is interesting because it gives an indication that bowel cancer risk might be affected by our lifestyle habits throughout the life course,” stated Rachel Thompson from the World Cancer Research Fund.
“In some ways, research into the relationship between factors like obesity and cancer risk is still in its infancy. It will be interesting to see if further research emerges in the future to back up the apparent relationship between body fatness in youth and late-life cancer risk.”