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17-01-2025 | Breast Cancer | News

Weight gain after breast cancer diagnosis may increase heart failure risk

Author: Dr. Shreeya Nanda

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medwireNews: Women with breast cancer (BC) who gain weight after their diagnosis could be at increased risk for heart failure (HF), suggests a nationwide cohort study.

Those with a 5–10% weight gain in the 0.5–2.5 years after the BC diagnosis had a 59% increased risk for HF, while those with a weight gain of more than 10% had an 85% increased risk.

“The findings underscore the importance of effective weight intervention in the oncological care of patients with BC, particularly within the first few years after diagnosis, to protect cardiovascular health,” write the study authors in a research letter to JAMA Oncology.

The team drew on the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) of the Republic of Korea to identify 43,717 women aged an average of 53.7 years with a new diagnosis of invasive BC between January 2010 and December 2016. The patients did not have HF before or within a year of their diagnosis.

“Weight change was assessed from NHIS’s biennial health screenings before (0-2 years) and after (0.5-2.5 years) BC diagnosis,” explain Dong Wook Shin (Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, Republic of Korea) and co-researchers.

The median BMI of the women was 23.5 kg/m2 before BC diagnosis and 23.3 kg/m2 postdiagnosis, and 77% of patients with obesity prior to BC maintained this status.

In all, 6.1% of participants had a more than 10% weight loss, 15.7% had a 5–10% weight loss, 63.9% maintained their weight (defined as weight changes within a 5% range), 10.7% had a 5–10% weight gain, and 3.5% had a more than 10% weight gain.

After adjusting for a raft of sociodemographic, cardiovascular risk, and cancer treatment factors, the hazard ratio for HF was a significant 1.59 for women who gained 5–10% of weight and a significant 1.85% for those who gained more than 10% of weight, relative to those who maintained their weight.

By contrast, weight loss was not associated with an increased or decreased HF risk.

Shin and colleagues acknowledge various limitations of the study, such as “the observational study design, reliance on health screening participants’ data, inability to differentiate the intention behind weight change, and limited generalizability to other races and ethnicities.”

Therefore, “the results require cautious interpretation,” they say, adding that “[f]urther intervention studies (eg, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists) are warranted.”

medwireNews is an independent medical news service provided by Springer Healthcare Ltd. © 2025 Springer Healthcare Ltd, part of the Springer Nature Group

JAMA Oncol 2024; doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2024.5803

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