Why bariatric surgery can prevent cancer

Overweight and obesity are responsible for nearly 500,000 new cases of cancer each year worldwide. This figure is an estimate made by researchers at the International Agency for Research on Cancer. But can weight loss reverse this trend? American researchers have done research on this. They sought to understand the effects of obesity surgery, also called bariatric surgery, on cancer risk. Their results were published in the specialized journal obesity.

Obesity: understanding the effects of surgery on cancer risk

“Although studies have established a positive association between body mass index and cancer incidence, the relationship between voluntary reduction in body weight and reduction in cancer risk is less clear, as it is difficult to obtain significant and sustained weight loss in large population samples”, explain the authors. But studies have shown a lower incidence and mortality of cancer in people who have undergone bariatric surgery compared to people who have not had surgery. Their work aimed to confirm this association.

Cancer and obesity: reduced incidence and risk of death thanks to surgery

Scientists at the University of Utah compared the health data of nearly 22,000 people who underwent surgery for obesity with those of people with obesity who did not have surgery. “The results showed that the bariatric surgery group had a 25% lower risk of developing cancer compared to the non-operated group.”, develop the authors. Then they sorted the data by gender and found that patients who had bariatric surgery had a 41% reduced risk of developing obesity-related cancers compared to women who had not had surgery. “Cancer risk in male patients who underwent bariatric surgery was not lower than in non-operated male subjects“, they observe. In detail, the women concerned had a lower risk of developing cancer of the uterus, breast, ovaries and colon. Their risk of cancer-related death was also reduced by 47%, in comparison to women suffering from obesity not treated by surgery.

A new argument in favor of bariatric surgery

“This research represents an important new study that strongly supports the long-term benefits of bariatric surgery in cancer prevention.”, says the lead author of this study Ted D. Adams. “Ted Adams and his colleagues are making important contributions to our understanding of the relationship between obesity and cancer, adds David B. Sarwer, director of the Center for Obesity Research in Philadelphia. The results of this study add to the already existing literature which shows that the significant weight loss observed with bariatric surgery decreases the risk of several types of cancer..” For him, this should be part of the information exchanged between doctors and their patients with obesity when they talk about bariatric surgery. Francenearly 60,000 people underwent this type of operation in 2016, about 20 times more than in 1997.