1. ¹Department of Epidemiology, University of Ulm, Helmholtzstrae 22, 89081 Ulm, Germany
2. ²Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7435, USA
3. ³Department of Medical Statistics, Informatics and Health Economics, Medical University, Innsbruck, Austria
4. ⁴Agency for Preventive and Social Medicine, Rheinstrae 61, 6900 Bregenz, Austria
5. ⁵Cancer Registry of Tyrol, Department of Clinical Epidemiology of the Tyrolean State Hospitals Ltd, Maximilianstrae 35, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria

Correspondence: Dr K Rapp, E-mail: kilian.rapp@medizin.uni-ulm.de

Received 16 June 2005; Revised 12 September 2005; Accepted 19 September 2005; Published online 18 October 2005.

Abstract

We investigated the relation of overweight and obesity with cancer in a population-based cohort of more than 145 000 Austrian adults over an average of 9.9 years. Incident cancers (n=6241) were identified through the state cancer registry. Using Cox proportional-hazards models adjusted for smoking and occupation, increases in relative body weight in men were associated with colon cancer (hazard rate (HR) ratio 2.48; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.15, 5.39 for body mass index (BMI) 35 kg m^-2) and pancreatic cancer (HR 2.34, 95% CI: 1.17, 4.66 for BMI>30 kg m^-2) compared to participants with normal weight (BMI 18.5–24.9 kg m^-2). In women, there was a weak positive association between increasing BMI and all cancers combined, and strong associations with non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (HR 2.86, 95% CI: 1.49, 5.49 for BMI30 kg m^-2) and cancers of the uterine corpus (HR 3.93, 95% CI: 2.35, 6.56 for BMI35 kg m^-2). Incidence of breast cancer was positively associated with high BMI only after age 65 years. These findings provide further evidence that overweight is associated with the incidence of several types of cancer.