Excess body weight and cancers
- admin82291
- Dec 3
- 1 min read
In a paper by Walsh et al,1 there was concern expressed that excess body weight (EBW) contributes to many cancers in New Zealand, compounding health inequities with higher proportions of EBW-attributable cancers within Māori and Pacific populations. Pacific peoples had the highest population attributable fraction (PAF) (11.8%), and this was highest among Pacific females (16.1%). Māori also had a higher PAF (6.9%) than European/Other (4.5%).
Early detection and prevention are important. The greatest number of cancers attributable to EBW were colorectal (1,801), followed by uterine (1,331) and breast cancer among postmenopausal females (1,231).
Reference:
Cancers potentially attributable to excess body weight in Aotearoa New Zealand from 2019 to 2023 NZ Med J (2025)
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