Table 2. Studies describing the association between risk of lung cancer and various obesity measures.
| Study | Sample size | Obesity measure | Results | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abe et al., 2021 (32) | 92,098 | BMI, weight change | Decreased lung cancer risk with increase in BMI (PTrend<0.001) in men | – |
| Ardesch et al., 2020 (28) | 9,869 | ABSI, BMI, WC, WHR | Decreased lung cancer risk with increase in BMI (HR =0.94, 95% CI: 0.91–0.97). Increased lung cancer risk with increase in ABSI (HR =1.17, 95% CI: 1.05–1.30), WC (HR =1.03, 95% CI: 1.01–1.05) and WHR (HR =1.23, 95% CI: 1.09–1.38) | Measures of central obesity may be a better indicator of risk of lung cancer than BMI |
| Gao et al., 2019 (37) | 28,784,269 | BMI, WC | Increased lung cancer risk with increase in WC (RR =1.26, 95% CI: 1.14–1.39) | No association between lung cancer incidence and BMI |
| Jeong et al., 2019 (29) | 100,985 | BMI, fat mass, lean body mass | Lung cancer risk is inversely associated with BMI (HR =0.73, 95% CI: 0.61–0.88) and lean body mass (HR =0.73, 95% CI: 0.53–1) | – |
| Sanikini et al., 2018 (30) | 12,643 | BMI | Decreased risk of lung cancer in obese (OR =0.69, 95% CI: 0.59–0.82) and overweight (OR =0.77, 95% CI: 0.68–0.86) patients | Decreased risk of lung cancer remained statistically significant after stratifying based on smoking history |
| Wood et al., 2021 (31) | 778,828 | BMI, metabolic score† | Patients with low BMI and high metabolic score had increased lung cancer risk (HR =1.52, 95% CI: 1.44–1.6) | Inverse curvilinear relationship between lung cancer risk and BMI |
| Wu et al., 2022 (7) | 37,085 | BMI, weight change | Both BMI gain ≥1.0 kg/m2/year (HR =2.15, 95% CI: 1.15–4.02) and BMI loss ≤1.0 kg/m2/year (HR =1.97, 95% CI: 1.12–3.45) associated with increased lung cancer risk | U-shaped restricted spline curve (Ptrend=0.002) noted for association between annual BMI change and lung cancer risk |
| You et al., 2022 (33) | 138,110 | BMI | Decreased risk of NSCLC with increase in BMI (HRtrend =0.78, P<0.001) | In GWIA, four independent genetic loci were found to be associated with BMI trajectories on NSCLC risk |
| Yu et al., 2018 (34) | 1,600,000 | BMI, WC, WHR | Decreased lung cancer risk with increase in BMI (HR =0.91, 95% CI: 0.90–0.93). Increased lung cancer risk with increase in WC (HR =1.11, 95% CI: 1.08–1.14) and WHR (HR =1.14, 95% CI: 1.11–1.18) | – |
| Zhao et al., 2022 (35) | 53,452 | BMI | Overweight (OR =0.83, 95% CI: 0.75–0.93) and obese (OR =0.64, 95% CI: 0.56–0.73) Caucasians had decreased risk of lung cancer, but not African Americans | – |
| Zhou et al., 2021 (26) | 85,716 | BMI | Decreased risk of lung AC with increase in BMI (OR =0.86, 95% CI: 0.77–0.96). Increased risk of SCLC with increase in BMI (OR =1.28, 95% CI: 0.77–0.96) | Association persisted after adjusting for smoking using multivariable Mendelian randomization |
| Zhu et al., 2018 (8) | 15,000,000 | BMI | Decreased risk of lung cancer with increase in BMI (RR =0.89, 95% CI: 0.84–0.95) | Study population consisted exclusively of never smokers |
†, metabolic score is derived from mid blood pressure, glucose, and triglycerides. BMI, body mass index; ABSI, A Body Shape Index; WC, waist circumference; WHR, waist-to-hip ratio; HR, hazard ratio; CI, confidence interval; RR, relative risk; OR, odds ratio; NSCLC, non-small cell lung cancer; GWIA, genome wide interaction analysis; AC, adenocarcinoma; SCLC, small cell lung cancer.