{"entity":{"id":"paper-calle-obesity-cancer-mortality-nejm-2003","kind":"paper","name":"Calle 2003: overweight, obesity and death from cancer in 900,000 US adults","aka":[],"tldr":"Following more than 900,000 American adults for 16 years, this study linked higher body weight to death from a wide range of cancers and estimated that excess weight could account for roughly one in seven cancer deaths in men and one in five in women in the United States.","summary":"Using the American Cancer Society's Cancer Prevention Study II, Calle and colleagues followed more than 900,000 adults who were cancer-free at enrolment in 1982 through 1998 and recorded 57,145 cancer deaths. Death rates from cancer rose with body mass index across most cancer sites, including cancers of the oesophagus, colon and rectum, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, kidney, stomach and prostate in men and breast, uterus, cervix and ovary in women. The heaviest participants had cancer death rates about half again higher than people of normal weight, and the authors estimated the share of US cancer deaths attributable to overweight and obesity.","asOf":"2026-09-08","links":[{"label":"Full text (DOI)","url":"https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa021423"}],"tags":[],"related":[],"cancers":["colorectal","hcc","pancreatic","endometrial","rcc"],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":["obesity-related-cancers","risk-factor","mortality"],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"journal":"New England Journal of Medicine","year":2003,"doi":"10.1056/NEJMoa021423","authors":"Calle EE, Rodriguez C, Walker-Thurmond K, Thun MJ.","paperType":"observational","findings":["Prospective cohort of more than 900,000 US adults followed for 16 years, with 57,145 cancer deaths.","Body mass index of 40 or more was associated with cancer death rates 52% higher in men and 62% higher in women than normal weight.","Overweight and obesity were estimated to account for about 14% of cancer deaths in men and 20% in women in the United States."],"whatItMeans":"This is the study most often cited for the size of the obesity and cancer link, and it broadened the list of weight-related cancers well beyond the few known before. It underlies weight management advice in cancer prevention guidance and the current interest in whether GLP-1 drugs change cancer risk.","caveats":["Observational, so confounding by diet, activity and other factors cannot be excluded.","Body weight was self-reported at enrolment only.","A US cohort in the 1980s and 1990s; patterns may differ elsewhere."],"changedPractice":false},"route":"/key-papers/paper-calle-obesity-cancer-mortality-nejm-2003/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"colorectal","kind":"cancer","name":"Colorectal cancer","route":"/cancers/colorectal/"},{"id":"endometrial","kind":"cancer","name":"Endometrial cancer","route":"/cancers/endometrial/"},{"id":"hcc","kind":"cancer","name":"Hepatocellular carcinoma","route":"/cancers/hcc/"},{"id":"pancreatic","kind":"cancer","name":"Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma","route":"/cancers/pancreatic/"},{"id":"rcc","kind":"cancer","name":"Renal cell carcinoma","route":"/cancers/rcc/"}],"term":[{"id":"mortality","kind":"term","name":"Mortality","route":"/terms/mortality/"},{"id":"obesity-related-cancers","kind":"term","name":"Obesity-related cancers (IARC list of 13)","route":"/terms/obesity-related-cancers/"},{"id":"risk-factor","kind":"term","name":"Risk factor","route":"/terms/risk-factor/"}]}}