Women with an abnormally high or low body mass index or higher hip-to-waist ratio may be at an increased risk of dying from breast cancer says a new study from researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research. The study lead researcher Marilyn Kwan and her team examined health records from 12,000 of white, African American and Asian American descent.
They found that overall, very underweight women diagnosed with breast cancer were 47 percent more likely to die of the condition. Very obese women were also 43 percent more likely to die of the condition. They also found that those with the highest hip-to-waist ratio were 30 percent more likely to die of breast cancer.
"Overall, we found that patients with breast cancer who were underweight, extremely obese or had high levels of abdominal body fat had the worst survival," said Kwan in a news release.
"Among non-Latina white women, being underweight and morbidly obese at breast cancer diagnosis was associated with worse survival, yet this relationship was not found in the other racial/ethnic groups," Kwan said. "Instead, African-American women and Asian-American women with larger waist-to-hip ratios had poorer survival, an observation not seen in non-Latina white women and Latina women."
They released the news this week in an American Association for Cancer Research press release.
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May 01, 2026 15:54 ET Central banks dominated the economics news flow this week with almost all major ones announcing their latest policy decisions and many boosted expectations for a rate hike in June. In other news, several countries released the preliminary data for first quarter economic growth. In the U.S., comments by Fed Chair Jerome Powell were also in focus as his term ends this month.