Updated July 29th, 2019

You’re Not Overweight, But You Have A Little Belly Fat — Your Increased Cancer Risk and What You Can Do About It

A major new study found that women over 50 who had extra fat around their waists had a 20 percent greater risk of dying from cancer, even if their Body Mass Index (BMI) was in the "normal" range.

SurvivorNet Staff

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You're not technically overweight, but you’re a woman over 50 with a few extra pounds around your waist. According to a new and credible piece of research, you’re at an increased risk for cancer. The problem comes from the fat around some of your vital organs, and alcohol and sugar may not be helping.

The study, which was published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), finds that women over 50 years-old who were considered "normal weight" but had a waist that measures over 34.6 inches had an increased risk of developing cancer, along with other dangerous health conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. Specifically, women who were normal weight but carried this belly fat were about 20 percent more likely to die of cancer than women who were normal weight without the belly fat.

RELATED: 10 Things You Need To Know If You Are Young And Have A Few Extra Pounds

Years of compounded evidence have linked obesity to a number of cancersincluding colorectal cancers, breast cancer, uterine cancer, esophageal cancer, kidney cancer, and pancreatic cancer, among others.

For most of these past studies, though, researchers defined obesity based on body mass index ("BMI"). Technically, a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is "normal weight," a BMI between 25.0 and 29.9 is "overweight," and a BMI over 30 is "obese."

But as the new study shows, it's possible to have a "normal" overall BMI and still carry extra belly fat. The researchers called this condition "central obesity," and pointed out that it's really commonespecially in the U.S. (In 2012, over a third of all people in the U.S. had "an unhealthy waist-to-height ratio.")

Why Does Belly Fat Increase Cancer Risk?

Although there is still a lot that researchers don’t know about body fat and cancer risk, one thing they do know is that the fat that accumulates in the waist area is a type of fat called "visceral fat."

Visceral fat, which means fat surrounding your vital organs, is more dangerous than the fat that accumulates around, say, your limbs. This is because too much visceral fat can cause inflammation in these organs, which, in turn, can eventually lead to cancer.

Fat cells can affect your body’s hormones, too, Dr. Elizabeth Comen, a breast cancer oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a medical advisor to SurvivorNet previously told us.

"We know that when women are overweight, they can have a state of inflammation in their bodies," Dr. Comen said. "Some of those fat cells can make estrogen, and we know that being exposed to too much estrogen over a woman's lifetime can significantly increase her risk of breast cancer."

Older Women May Need to Be Extra Careful With Belly Fat

The over 150,000 women who enrolled in this new study had all gone through menopause.

This is an important detail, because the hormonal changes that women go through during menopause can lead their bodies to store more fat in the waist than other areas.

"For post-menopausal women, lower estrogen levels can change the way your body stores fat," doctors at the MD Anderson Cancer Center wrote in a guidance article about belly fat and cancer risk. "Instead of storing fat in your hips and thighs, you may see more fat in your abdomen. This extra tummy fat can disrupt your hormones and increase your chances of breast and uterine cancers."

Dr. Elizabeth Comen of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center spoke with SurvivorNet about how diet and exercise can decrease your cancer risk.

Simple Changes Can Help You Trim Your Belly Fat and Reduce Your Cancer Risk Even if You're a "Normal Weight."

If you're an older woman and have noticed your pants feeling tight, don't stressyou're not going to automatically get a cancer diagnosis if you have a few extra inches around your waist.

Plus, there are some fairly straightforward changes you can make to trim your waist. Doctors know, for instance, that simple sugars and alcohol are particularly likely to cause belly fat, so you can think about cutting back on those, and perhaps replacing them with nuts, whole grains, fruits and veggies, and low-fat dairy products.

Moderate exerciseincluding strength training abdominal exercisescan also help.

"Exercise doesn't have to mean all of a sudden you're running a triathlon or you're doing something that you've never done before," Dr. Comen said, adding that she often asks her patients, "what do you like to do?"

"Do you like dancing, but you really don't want to go to that Zumba class because you're afraid of embarrassing yourself? Well, maybe you turn on the music at home and have a dance party."

Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.

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