Obesity during early adulthood raises the chances that a person will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, according to a study.

"This is the first study to explore at which ages excess body weight predisposes an individual to pancreatic cancer," said Donghui Li, professor of medicine at the University of Texas Anderson Department.

"With our epidemiological research, we aimed to demonstrate the relationship between BMI (body mass index) and risk of pancreatic cancer across a patient's life span and determine if there was a time period that specifically predisposes an individual to the disease," he added.