The Obesity-Ovarian Cancer Link

Ovarian cancer is the deadliest of gynecologic cancers. The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2024 about 19,680 new cases of ovarian cancer will be diagnosed, and 12,740 women will die of ovarian cancer in the United States.

Although the exact cause of ovarian cancer is not known for every woman, one of the risk factors is obesity. The link? Estrogen, which is made in body fat, and the more body fat a woman has, the more estrogen she produces.

In pre-menopausal women, each month progesterone is also produced to enable the lining of the womb to be shed during the menstrual cycle. However, after menopause, when estrogen production by the ovaries drops dramatically, it continues to be produced in fat tissue. Therefore, women with excess body fat continue to produce high levels of estrogen, and these act on the womb lining—but without the regulating effects of progesterone. It’s this that’s the link.

High levels of post-menopausal estrogen can also stimulate abnormal breast cell growth, which leads to more rapid development of estrogen-positive breast cancers. And if you’ve had breast cancer, you are at an increased risk of developing ovarian cancer.