Study finds weight-loss surgery cuts cancer risk

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Morbidly obese patients who undergo weight-loss surgery greatly reduce their risk of cancer, according to a study providing fresh evidence of health benefits from these increasingly common operations.

Researchers from McGill University in Montreal found that the people who underwent bariatric surgery saw reductions in particular in the risk for breast and colon cancer. Many people see dramatic weight loss after such surgery.

People who are deemed morbidly obese typically are at least 100 pounds (45 kg) overweight. The researchers tracked 1,035 such patients who had bariatric surgery for five years. They also monitored 5,746 patients who matched the surgery group in age, sex and weight but did not have this surgery.

Those who underwent bariatric surgery had about an 80 percent lower risk of developing cancer, the study showed.

"The evidence is mounting that weight loss through weight-loss surgery, if you are extremely obese, is extremely beneficial both to your health as well as to your quality of life," Dr. Nicolas Christou, McGill's head of bariatric surgery who led the study, said in a telephone interview on Thursday.

In addition to cutting the incidence of breast cancer by about 85 percent and colon cancer by about 70 percent, those who underwent bariatric surgery also saw reductions in the risk for pancreatic cancer, skin cancer, uterine cancer and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, the researchers said.

Obesity raises the risk for several types of cancer, including cancers of the breast, colon, esophagus and kidney, as well as numerous other diseases.

The study buttresses findings published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine that obese people who have bariatric surgery have a lower risk of death from heart disease, diabetes as well as cancer compared to obese people who do not have such surgery.