A new study published in the European Heart Journal, led by researchers at the University of Aberdeen and Keele University, followed 22,534 UK adults over a 25-year period and found that men with cardiovascular disease face a significantly higher chance of developing and dying from cancer than women with the same heart condition. The pattern held across every cancer subtype the team looked at, with lung and colorectal cancers accounting for the highest risk.
The team drew on the EPIC-Norfolk database, a long-running UK population study, to compare cancer incidence and cancer death rates between men and women with and without cardiovascular disease. It is the first study to map how sex shapes the relationship between heart disease and cancer.
Which cancers drive the excess risk
Lung and colorectal cancers accounted for the highest risk in men with cardiovascular disease, and the sex gap was also pronounced for oesophageal cancer. These are cancers strongly tied to some of the same behaviors that damage the heart, which is a clue to why the two disease families cluster.
"We found that cancer incidence and death were higher in people with cardiovascular disease than in those without," said Dr Tiberiu Pana, a specialty registrar in cardiology at NHS Grampian and one of the study authors. Dr Rosa Thuemmler, who carried out the research at the University of Aberdeen, added that "men had a higher incidence of both getting cancer in the first place and sadly, also in dying from it," and that the effect was "most pronounced in lung and oesophageal cancers."
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Why the sex gap looks so wide
Cardiovascular disease and cancer share a long list of modifiable drivers. The Aberdeen and Keele team point to smoking, obesity and alcohol consumption as likely mediators of the association, and argue that these lifestyle risk factors should be targeted as early as possible to avoid either condition. A 2024 review in Nature Reviews Cardiology describes the two illnesses as biologically entangled through chronic inflammation, oxidative stress and metabolic dysfunction, all of which can accelerate the genetic damage that eventually turns a healthy cell cancerous.
Professor Mamas Mamas of Keele University noted that while the risk of heart disease in cancer patients is well known, it is now becoming clear that patients with cardiovascular risk are themselves at increased risk of cancer, with important sex differences in the cancer types involved.
There is also a documented pattern of men presenting later. Earlier research has shown that men are more likely to receive a late cancer diagnosis than women, which can turn a treatable tumor into a fatal one.
What men with heart disease can do now
The researchers argue that a cardiovascular disease diagnosis should trigger a fresh look at cancer prevention, not just cholesterol and blood pressure. "More needs to be done to improve risk management, targeted screening and prevention to address this health inequality," said Professor Phyo Myint, Chair in Old Age Medicine at the University of Aberdeen, who led the research.
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For men already living with heart disease, that means keeping up with the age-appropriate cancer screenings their primary care doctor recommends, including low-dose CT screening for lung cancer if there is a smoking history, and colonoscopy or stool-based testing for colorectal cancer. Cardiologists can also flag persistent symptoms that warrant a workup, such as unexplained weight loss, new coughing or blood in the stool.
The behavior levers are the familiar ones and they cut both ways. Quitting smoking, cutting back on alcohol, moving daily and getting weight into a healthier range reduce heart events and dampen the shared inflammatory pathways that also feed tumor growth. Doctors have long warned that men in particular tend to shrug off early cardiac symptoms, and the new data suggests the cost of that habit may extend well beyond the heart.
Men with a cardiovascular diagnosis should raise cancer screening explicitly at their next cardiology or primary care visit and ask which tests are due based on age, smoking history and family history.
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This article is made and published by Jesper Bengtson, who may have used AI in the preparation.