Being overweight significantly increases the risk of pancreatic cancer due to elevated insulin levels, chronic inflammation, and hormonal imbalances caused by excess body fat. However, adopting healthy lifestyle habits such as regular exercise, maintaining a proper waistline, eating a fiber-rich diet, and achieving modest weight loss can effectively lower this risk and protect your long-term health.

Being overweight significantly increases the risk of pancreatic cancer due to elevated insulin levels, chronic inflammation, and hormonal imbalances caused by excess body fat. However, adopting healthy lifestyle habits such as regular exercise, maintaining a proper waistline, eating a fiber-rich diet, and achieving modest weight loss can effectively lower this risk and protect your long-term health.

Being overweight significantly increases the risk of pancreatic cancer due to elevated insulin levels, chronic inflammation, and hormonal imbalances caused by excess body fat. However, adopting healthy lifestyle habits such as regular exercise, maintaining a proper waistline, eating a fiber-rich diet, and achieving modest weight loss can effectively lower this risk and protect your long-term health.

Being overweight can increase the risk of pancreatic cancer, and the link is stronger than most people think.

Studies tracking over a million adults found that for every 5-point rise in BMI, pancreatic cancer risk goes up by about 10 per cent. If your BMI is above 30, your risk is roughly 20 to 30 per cent higher than someone with a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9. The World Cancer Research Fund now lists excess body fat as a convincing cause.

Why your pancreas reacts to extra weight

Your pancreas makes insulin. When you carry extra fat around your belly, your cells stop responding well to insulin. Your body then makes more of it. High insulin levels appear to push pancreatic cells to divide faster. Faster division means more chances for errors.

Extra fat also raises inflammation in your body. Blood tests in people with higher body fat often show higher levels of C-reactive protein and interleukin-6. That low-grade inflammation can damage DNA over years.

Fat tissue also changes your hormones. It raises levels of leptin and lowers adiponectin. That imbalance seems to affect cell growth regulation.

What this means for you

You cannot change your age or your family history. Pancreatic cancer risk rises after 60 and if a parent or sibling had it. But you can change what you carry and how you live.

If you are overweight, losing even 5 to 7 per cent of your body weight helps. For a person weighing 85 kilos, that is about 4 to 6 kilos. That amount is enough to lower fasting insulin and inflammation markers within weeks.

What can help

Move 150 minutes a week. That could be 30 minutes of brisk walking five days. Keep your waist under 90 cm if you are a man and under 80 cm if you are a woman. Those cutoffs track pancreatic risk better than weight alone.

Eat more fibre. Aim for 25 to 30 grams a day from vegetables, lentils, and whole grains. Cut sugary drinks and processed meats like sausages and salami. Both are linked to weight gain and to pancreatic risk.

If you smoke, quitting matters more. Smoking alone doubles your risk. Combined with excess weight, the risk is higher.

You do not need to be thin. You need to avoid steady weight gain from your 20s onward. Your pancreas responds to what you do consistently, not what you do for a week.

The author is a consultant in medical gastroenterology at Manipal Hospital, Bhubaneswar.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.

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