Obesity is the single strongest risk factor for colon cancer in women, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

They found that women with precancerous polyps in the colon were more likely to be obese than women without these lesions. And obesity more strongly predicted who would have these growths than smoking or having a family history of colon cancer.

“Of all the risk factors like age, family history, smoking, the most potent risk factor was being obese,” Dr. Joseph Anderson of Stony Brook University in New York, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

“One in five lesions may be attributable to obesity.”

Colorectal cancer is the third-leading cause of cancer death in the United States. It will affect 153,000 Americans in 2007, according to the American Cancer Society, and will kill 52,000.

Family history, smoking and diet are all linked with colorectal cancer but Anderson said experts are still struggling to identify the causes that underlie most cases.

Doctors can use colonoscopy, in which a tiny camera is threaded up into the colon, to not only detect precancerous polyps but to remove them, thus often preventing cancer.

Anderson and colleagues examined the records of 1,252 women who underwent colonoscopy, classifying patients by age, smoking history, family history of colorectal cancer, and body mass index or BMI. Obesity was defined as having a BMI of 30 or higher.

Then they looked to see who had the most polyps, and who was more likely to have them at all.

“BMI was a huge risk factor. And it’s a risk factor that’s increasing,” Anderson said.

BMI was not linked to the risk of colon cancer for men, Anderson and colleagues found.

“We need to counsel people on things like losing weight and staying thin,” said Anderson, who presented his findings to a meeting in Philadelphia of the American College of Gastroenterology.

“Given the increasing number of obese patients in the United States, identifying them as high risk may have important screening implications,” he added.

Why obesity might be linked with colon cancer is unclear, said Anderson.

“Probably the leading factors are going to be insulin and insulin-like growth factor,” he said. People who have more visceral fat, the fat around the internal organs that is associated with the worst effects of being overweight, also have higher levels of insulin and insulin-like growth factor.

New research suggests that a nutrient in red meat, poultry and dairy products may contribute to the development of intestinal polyps, which can lead to colon cancer.

The study, which involved women only, was preliminary, and no one is yet suggesting a change in diet as a result.

However, the research into the nutrient, called choline, could ultimately lead to new dietary recommendations, said Eunyoung Cho, an epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

“There may be some impact,” Cho said. “But this is one study, and it’s hard to make any conclusion based on this study.”

The role played by choline, a nutrient required by the body, has been unclear. Some researchers had thought it might provide protection against colon cancer, which kills an estimated 52,000 people in the United States each year, according to the American Cancer Society. The disease is the second biggest cancer killer in the United States after lung cancer.

In the new study, Cho and colleagues looked at nurses enrolled in a large study. They found more than 39,000 women who were free of colon cancer and then underwent at least one endoscopic examination between 1984 and 2002. Polyps — benign growths that can lead to colon cancer — were found in more than 2,400 of the women.

Women who ate the most choline in their food were 1.45 times more likely to have polyps, the team reported in the Aug. 7 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Having more polyps doesn’t necessarily mean more cancer, and future research will explore whether those who ate the most choline actually developed tumors, Cho said. Studies also need to look into the impact of choline on men.

Why might choline contribute to polyps, and possibly colon cancer, in the first place? The nutrient is a major component of the membranes of cells, Cho said, “and the tumor cell may need choline.”

Currently, health officials recommend that people prevent colon cancer by eating a lot of fiber along with fruits and vegetables. Red meat, meanwhile, is thought to increase risk.

That dietary advice isn’t likely to change even if choline turns out to be a possible villain, said Regina Ziegler, a senior investigator with the National Cancer Institute, who co-wrote a commentary accompanying the new study. “What they’re finding is consistent” with the recommendations, she said.

As for now, “people shouldn’t run out and start either taking more choline or less choline,” she said.

More research points to the medicinal effects of red wine. Researchers say the consumption of more than three glasses of red wine a week reduced the risk of colon cancer.

Joseph C. Anderson, M.D, and his colleagues at SUNY Stony Brook, compared the drinking habits of 360 red and white wine drinkers with similar lifestyles as part of a study examining the prevalence of colorectal neoplasia.

They found that drinking red wine significantly reduced the risk of colorectal neoplasia by 68 percent, but drinking white wine did not. Researchers suspect that higher concentrations of the compound resveratrol in red wine may provide a protective effect against colon cancer.

The research highlights the potential role of red wine in chemoprevention of colon cancer, but when it comes to proven prevention strategies, doctors say screening for colorectal cancer remains essential and is the most proven preventative measure that individuals can use to reduce their risk of developing this disease.

Screening tests can find precancerous polyps, allowing removal before they turn into cancer.

Colorectal cancer is one of the most detectable, and if found early enough, the most treatable forms of cancer, according to the American College of Gastroenterology.

He first played on professional football teams, the San Diego Chargers, the Houston Oilers, and the Kansas City Chiefs, and then found fame and fortune in professional wrestling, a sport that landed him in the World Wrestling Federation Hall of Fame.

He is Ernie “Big Cat” Ladd. And on Saturday night, he died of cancer at the age of 68.

Ladd’s battle with cancer began in 2004. It started in his colon and later spread to his stomach and bones.

“The doctor told me I had three-to-six months to live,” Ladd said in 2005. “I told him Dr. Jesus has the verdict on me.”

It seems the great doctor gave Ladd, the 15th player taken in the 1961 AFL draft, more than a few months, proof that numbers are not everything in the game of cancer.

Ladd, almost 6-foot-10 and more than 300 pounds, started making appearances at wrestling events during his football career. He was first a special events referee and then became a wrestler. It was both a knee injury and the lure of the lucrative wrestling industry that ended Ladd’s football career.

“In what other sport can you pick up a $14 pair of boots, $0.59 socks, spend maybe a total of $50, and convert it into $100,000 a year, if you are sharp and train?” Ladd once said. “My intention was to go back to football, but pro wrestling was so good to me.”

Bill Clinton, mourning the loss of his stepfather, joined family and friends and hundreds of others who gathered on Saturday for the funeral of a man the former president says brought his mother the best years she ever had.

Richard Kelley, 91, died Wednesday at home after a long battle with cancer of the colon and liver. He was a retired salesman and was married to Clinton’s mother, Virginia, for 12 years before she died in 1994 from breast cancer.

Clinton spoke to more than 600 people at Kelley’s funeral, sharing his love for the man he said left the world with grace.

Exercise is the key to a health body and a healthy mind.

It is believed that one hour of daily vigorous exercise or two hours of less strenuous activity is now linked to a lower risk of colon cancer, according to the results of a recent study.

Cycling, Jogging, running, pumping iron, swimming, and even housecleaning can do the trick, as demonstrated by research conducted with 413,000 people in 10 European countries.

Of those studied, people with the highest level of exercise were 22 percent less likely to develop cancer and 35 percent less likely to develop tumors on the right side of the colon. Those of normal weight enjoyed a greater benefit, but exercise was also beneficial for the overweight and obese. Exercise did not have a protective effect against rectal cancer.

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According to a new study, if you prefer having onions and garlic in your daily diet, you might have lower odds of certain types of cancers.

After analyzing eight different studies from Switzerland and Italy, researchers found that adults who have the highest intake of onions or garlic in their diet had the lowest risk in certain types of cancer. Among these the main were colon, ovarian and throat cancer.

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An experimental vaccine may help colorectal cancer patients battle the disease. This vaccine developed in the U.K. stimulated the production of killer T cells in up to 70 of colorectal cancer patients.

Researchers at the University of Nottingham cloned an antibody called 105AD7 from a patient with colorectal cancer who survived seven years with liver metastases.

“This is the first vaccine shown to stimulate TNF-alpha — an immune system protein that is very effective at killing cancer cells,” says senior author Professor Lindy Durrant, from the University of Nottingham in England.

The study involved 67 patients, average age 66, with colorectal cancer of varying severity. They were randomized to receive 100 mcg of 105AD7, 105AD7 with BCG (a bacteria used to stimulate the immune system in cancer patients) during the first immunization followed by 105AD7 alone, or no treatment.

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Even after successful treatment for colon cancer, the very obese are about one-third more likely to have their cancer recur and to die prematurely from cancer than those of normal weight, researchers from the University of Chicago and the University of Pittsburgh report in the Nov. 15, 2006, issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Obese patients are more likely to have a recurrence of colon cancer than their normal-weight counterparts and face an increased risk of dying from the disease.

While it’s not clear that losing weight would improve their prognosis, Dr. James J. Dignam of the University of Chicago and colleagues note, healthy lifestyle changes would probably have other beneficial effects for obese colon cancer patients.

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Colorectal cancer appears to be more common in men than women, according to a new study from Poland published in this week’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study finds that polyps linked to colon cancer are 73 percent more common in men than in women, leading researchers to suggest that colorectal cancer screening guidelines be changed.

Doctors using colonoscopy on 50,000 patients found 73 percent more advanced cancerous lesions in males than in their female counterparts. Currently, recommendations say that both men and women go in for a colonoscopy at age 50 and follow up about every 10 years, with earlier and more frequent visits advised for people with a family history of colon or rectal cancers. The authors of this study predict that their findings may lead to the adjustment of screening recommendations for colorectal cancer based on sex, where men may need to be screened more often.

“Everybody needs to get screened,” said Dr. Jerald Wishner, the director of the colorectal cancer program and colorectal surgery at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mt. Kisco, New York. “The worst thing that could happen is for people to interpret that we don’t have to worry about women.”

“Seeing the precursors to colon cancer more in men than in women — that’s been out there for a long time. But I would have a problem focusing screening more on men than women because colon cancer and polyps are still very common in women,” Wishner added.

“There have been some minimal differences between men and women, but I don’t know that there’s enough information to start changing guidelines,” added Dr. Andrejs Avots-Avotins, associate professor of internal medicine with the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine. “Colon cancer is an equal-opportunity cancer. We shouldn’t be characterizing men and women differently,” he said.

Colorectal malignancies are the second leading cancer killer in the United States. Unlike many cancers, however, the disease is largely preventable through detection of precancerous polyps, such as those discussed in this study.

The American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) currently recommends that average-risk individuals start screening at age 50. The preferred method is a colonoscopy once every 10 years. Other methods are available but have to be performed more frequently.

Research presented just last week at the ACG annual meeting found that increased use of colonoscopy and other screening is having the intended effect: a significant drop in colon cancer rates in the United States over the past two decades.

Those recommendations are based only on age and family history of cancer, not gender.

It’s well known that the prevalence of polyps is higher in men than in women, although lifetime colorectal cancer rates are similar between the genders.

In the study, a team from Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center in Warsaw looked at data on over 50,000 people 40 to 66 years old who were participating in a colorectal-cancer screening program using colonoscopy in Poland. People 40 to 49 were eligible only if they had a family history of colon cancer. The remainder of the participants were of average risk.

Almost 6 percent of participants aged 50 to 66 had advanced neoplasia (colon lesions or polyps), as did 3.4 percent of participants aged 40 to 49. But men were 73 percent more likely to have advanced neoplasia than women.

In each age group studied, the number of people who would need to undergo colorectal cancer screening in order to detect one advanced neoplasia was significantly lower in men than in women, even when age and family history were similar.

The fact that the paper comes out of Poland, where incidence of colorectal cancer and diet are different from the United States, makes it hard to translate the findings for American patients, Wishner said.

He wasn’t swayed by cost-effectiveness arguments, either.

“I’m always wary of things that look at the cheapest way as opposed to the best way because we’re talking about cancer,” Wishner said. “Which person out there wants to be the one that slips through the cracks because it’s too expensive to find everyone with cancer?”

Colonoscopy resources are limited, according to Avots-Avotins, so it’s possible that “this might be one way to risk-stratify.” Still, he said, “I’m not sure it’s enough to warrant changes.”