The strongest associations were seen in women with bloating, where cancer patients had 5-fold higher odds of having raised platelets (OR 4.78, 95%CI 3.68–6.21, P < 0.001) and 6-fold higher odds of having a low albumin (OR 6.23, 95%CI 4.51–8.62, p < 0.001) than controls (Table 2). Here, ALB is linked to cancer.