This week's Ask Dr. Durie comes from a patient who is concerned because they've read that being overweight, obesity, is linked to the increased risk of myeloma. And the answer to this particular question is that yes, you are correct. Being overweight has been linked to an increased likelihood of developing multiple myeloma. And not only that, at the recent European Hematology Association meeting, the EHA meeting 2024, data were presented from the iStopMM project. This is the Iceland screening project looking at the occurrence and correlates of developing MGUS, which is the precursor of multiple myeloma. In a recent analysis from the iStopMM, it was noted that the greater the increase in the weight in patients who were obese, the greater the likelihood of developing MGUS. And so there was a very strong correlation between increasing weight and the increasing occurrence of MGUS.
And so this is extremely important because in Iceland, these patients are truly coming from a random screening. With other kinds of MGUS where patients might have gone for evaluation to the hospital maybe for being overweight, or having heart complications, or that kinds of things, it's actually hard to assess is MGUS really truly associated with being overweight? But in this case, it seems to be a true association.
And so the bottom line is that if additional assessment, which is ongoing does indeed confirm this, then we have a risk factor for MGUS, which has a potential for active intervention. We can indeed encourage weight reduction in some fashion. And then the question will be, if a patient has MGUS and attention is paid to the weight, can this change the likelihood of disease progression to the occurrence of active myeloma?
So this is actually quite an exciting new topic, and I personally look forward to the follow-on analysis, and the potential for active intervention to see if there is finally something that we can do to decrease the likelihood of progression from MGUS to active myeloma.
Professor of Medicine, Hematologist/Oncologist, and Honoree MD at the University of Brussels, Dr. Brian G.M. Durie is a co-founder of the IMF and a member of the IMF Board of Directors.
