Obesity causes cancer in 6,000 British women a year

LONDON (Reuters) - Excess weight means around 6,000 British women contract cancer every year, according to research published on Wednesday underlining the link between obesity and cancer.

Findings from the Million Women Study -- an investigation of disease incidence in 1.2 million British women aged 50 to 64 -- suggest that being overweight or obese accounts for 5 percent of new cancer cases among middle-aged and older women.

Scientists from Cancer Research UK and Oxford University, writing in the British Medical Journal, said body weight was particularly important in cancer of the womb and the oesophagus, where about half of all cases were attributable to being too fat.

The cancer risk of being overweight or obese was highlighted last week in a report released jointly by the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler, editing by Giles Elgood)