Weight loss may help prevent multiple myeloma

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-11/wuis-wlm111816.php

Public Release: 18-Nov-2016
Weight loss may help prevent multiple myeloma
Excess weight increases risk that benign blood disorder will become cancerous
Washington University in St. Louis

New research shows that excess weight increases the risk that a benign blood disorder will progress into multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood.

The study, by a team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is published Nov. 18 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Being overweight or obese has been known to increase the risk of multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells in the blood and bone marrow that develops more often after age 60. Multiple myeloma is preceded by a blood disorder called monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) in which abnormal plasma cells produce many copies of an antibody protein. This precancerous condition does not cause symptoms and often goes undiagnosed.

"But our findings show that obesity can now be defined as a risk factor for developing multiple myeloma through this condition," said the study's first author, Su-Hsin Chang, PhD, an assistant professor of surgery in the Division of Public Health Sciences at Washington University. "For patients diagnosed with MGUS, maintaining a healthy weight may be a way to prevent the progression to multiple myeloma, if further confirmed by clinical trials."

•••••