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Obesity Treatment May Ease Tumor Risk

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Los Angeles Times

Published: June 19, 2008

Gastric bypass surgery - a treatment for obesity that is known to reduce heart disease and diabetes - decreases the incidence of cancer by 80 percent during the five years after the procedure, Canadian researchers reported Wednesday.

The incidence of two of the most common tumors, breast and colon, were reduced 85 percent and 70 percent, respectively, said Nicolas Christou of McGill University in Toronto.

The study confirms the findings of two papers in August that showed the surgery reduced overall deaths from cancer. The new study goes a step further by showing reductions in the incidence of several specific types of cancer, said Philip Schauer of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, who was not involved in the study.

"This is really powerful information," said Schauer, who is the past president of the American Society of Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery. "It reaffirms that obesity is a profound risk factor for cancer" and shows that "weight loss does seem to affect the development of new cancers."

But Edward H. Phillips, of Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, was skeptical about the findings because cancer takes a long time to develop and the patients were studied for only five years.

He said it is now common practice for surgery candidates to undergo mammograms, colonoscopies and endoscopies to screen for cancer before the weight-loss surgery.

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