Now, courtesy of a study out of McGill University reported at the annual meeting of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, comes evidence that the relationship cuts the other way, too. Lose the weight, and cancer risk declines.
The new study compared over 1,000 people who underwent bariatric surgery to treat their obesity to almost 6,000 comparably overweight people who did not. The cancer rate was 80% lower in the surgery group over a 16-year period.
This is not quite proof that bariatric surgery reduces cancer risk; maybe the healthier people, less prone to cancer in the first place, were more amenable to surgery. But this is far-fetched. A genuine benefit of the surgery is the most likely explanation.
I am not a big fan of relying on surgery to fix a condition we should address at the roots, with societal interventions to make eating well and being active more the norm. But once obesity does develop, it can be both hard to fix, and quite dangerous--increasing risk for diabetes, heart disease, and cancer alike.
Bariatric surgery should be a last resort--but used judiciously, it is a powerful and effective therapy. We can now add cancer prevention to the list of likely benefits.
But if treating obesity reduces cancer risk, so does preventing it. So we can also add a compelling item to the already compelling list of reasons why obesity prevention should be a top societal priority.
Talk back! Have you had weight loss surgery, or do you know someone who has? Tell me what you think about bariatric surgery!
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