Impact of overweight on cancer risk may be significantly underestimated

MedicalXpress | Jul 16, 2026

Being overweight and obesity may contribute to significantly more cancer cases than previously thought. This is the conclusion reached by researchers at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ). Their analysis shows that when more accurate measures of body fat and methodological biases are considered, more than 10% of all cancer cases can be attributed to increased body weight—nearly twice as many as previous estimates suggested.