A research team from St. Mary's Hospital found obese males who had diabetes had a higher risk of getting bladder cancer than the general population - 2.88 times more likely, to be exact.

Bladder cancer is the eighth most commonly occurring cancer among Korean males, according to St. Mary’s.

The team led by Professor Hah You-shin used big data from the National Health Insurance Service to perform an observational study on more than 800,000 adult men over 20 years of age who have had at least one health check-up from 2004 to 2008.

Findings showed that overweight males had a 1.62 times higher risk than the general population in getting bladder cancer. Obese men with diabetes also had a 2.41 time higher risk.

Obese males with a BMI over 25 who also had diabetes faced the highest risk, being 2.88 times more likely to get bladder cancer than the general population.

The study was published in the January edition of the International Journal of Cancer.