The risk of colorectal cancer is known to increase with obesity. This association has likely been severely underestimated thus far, according to research from the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ). The cause is that a lot of people accidentally lose weight prior to receiving a colon cancer diagnosis.

When studies simply take into account body weight at the time of diagnosis, the true link between obesity and the risk of colorectal cancer is obscured. The new study also demonstrates that inadvertent weight reduction may serve as a precursor to colorectal cancer.