COLON CANCER AND OBESITY

Suzana Savkovic, associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the School of Medicine, and a team of researchers are investigating the relationship between obesity and enhanced risk for colon cancer. One of the emerging possibilities with regard to colon cancer is that excess lipids accumulate in both the fat-storing and non-fat-storing tissues of obese individuals. The lipids are stored and are seen at higher volumes in colonic tumors relative to normal tissues. Savkovic and her team were awarded a five-year, $1.6 million National Cancer Institute grant for this work.

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