Can yo-yo dieting increase your risk of cancer?

Weight cycling or yo-yo dieting has no connection with an increased risk of cancer in men or women, a study suggests. American Cancer Society investigators found that weight cycling was not associated with overall risk of cancer in men or women after adjusting for Body Mass Index and other factors.

Here s all you need to know about BMI and how to calculate it. With almost half of American adults reporting they are trying to lose weight, and with most weight loss not maintained, weight cycling is very common. For the study, Victoria Stevens of the American Cancer Society examined weight cycling and cancer among more than 132,000 men and women enrolled in the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort. Running or cycling- Which one is better for weight loss?

They looked at weight cycling and incidence for all cancer and 15 individual cancers. More than 25,000 participants developed cancer during 17 years of study. Stevens said that the current study should be reassuring for the millions of Americans struggling to lose weight. She said that their findings suggested that overweight and obese individuals shouldn't let fears about their ability to maintain weight loss keep them from trying to lose weight in the first place. The story is published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.