Better body composition has been linked to cancer survival

Increased muscle mass along with decreased levels of excess fat has been shown to help improve the chances of surviving cancer, according to a recent study from Kaiser Permanente, the University of Alberta, and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

The chance of mortality among those with muscle deficiency was 41 percent while those with excess body fat showed a rate of 35 percent.

More alarming, however, is that those with body compositions that included both risk factors succumbed to cancer in 89 percent of cases.

Researchers have often studied the link between body size and cancer survival rates in the past, but traditionally they have used the body mass index (BMI) as the method of analyzing the body. By using CT scans of the abdominal portion of the body, specifically the third lumbar vertebra of the lower back, the researchers were able to see a more accurate breakdown of both muscle and fat tissues in the body. They concluded that such a measurement led to better prognostic information than using BMI alone.

Despite the strong correlation between having a better body mass composition and lowered risk of breast cancer-related death, the true causation cannot be revealed by this study alone, according to Forbes. It is possible that those with less muscle simply had more aggressive forms of cancer that wouldn’t respond to treatment and were therefore more lethal regardless of their starting mass.

According to the National Institutes of Health, cancer cachexia, the progressive loss of both fat and muscle loss among cancer patients, is responsible for about a quarter of all cancer deaths and having a larger stockpile of healthy body mass to lose could be a necessary defense for survival.