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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 "The BMI [body mass index] finding is very interesting but it's hard to know what to make of it," Moore said. "It's also hard to say if it's a causal relationship or not. It could be that obesity increases the risk of brain cancer, or if could be that some underlying condition increases both the risk of obesity and brain cancer."
Neither weight nor exercise affected glioma risk beyond the teen years.
Tall people were also at increased risk of glioma. Each 10 centimeter (about 3.9 inches) increase in height meant a nearly 20 percent increase in risk of developing glioma.
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The researchers said increases in glioma risk could be related to "energy balance" during a critical period of brain development. People who are tall have higher levels of the growth factor IGF-1 during childhood. Growth factors promote the proliferation of cells.
"Anything that increases the rate of proliferation of cells could potentially be a cancer risk factor," Moore said.
Dr. Paul Graham Fisher, a professor of neurology at Stanford University, said the study was "well done," but questioned why exercise and weight did not affect glioma risk beyond the teen years.
"You start scratching your head and asking, 'Why wouldn't it be true in the 20s and 30s or later?'" Fisher said. "It's possible there is some critical window in which energy balance can impact glioma genesis."
And though researchers relied on the recollections of older adults about their weight and physical activity from many decades ago, there's no reason to suspect people who were later diagnosed with glioma had any better or worse memories, or reported their height and weight with any particular bias than those who didn't develop the brain tumors.
With the risk of developing glioma so low among the general population, the findings aren't so much a prescription for teens to exercise as more information for researchers searching for the biological underpinnings of glioma in the hopes developing new treatments.
Yet it's not a bad idea to encourage teens to stay active, too, Moore said.
"At this point in time, these data are more relevant to the biology of glioma, but they provide some preliminary evidence that physical activity could be important for glioma, too," Moore said.
More information
The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more on brain tumors.
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