Obesity increases the risk of developing a common and virulent form of kidney cancer, a new study finds.

Researchers looked at 1,640 patients, average age 62, with kidney tumors and found that obese patients were 48 percent more likely to develop a clear-cell renal cell cancer (RCC) than those with a body-mass index (BMI) of less than 30, the cutoff for obesity. The odds of developing RCC increased by 4 percent for every extra BMI point.

Malignant tumors with clear-cell RCC were found in 67 percent of obese patients with malignant tumors, compared with 57 percent of non-obese patients with malignant tumors. Obese and non-obese patients had similar rates for other kinds of malignant tumors, including papillary, chromophobe, and collecting duct.

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