Weight Loss Surgery Cuts Cancer Risk By 42 percent.

This is an interesting discovery. It seems that weight loss surgery helps women rather then men reduce their risk of cancer.

The correlation between being obese and the increased risk of developing certain types of cancer has been documented before. However what was unclear was whether weight loss surgery would reduce that risk.

Well, a recent study by Swedish researchers published in Lancet Oncology shows that women who have had weight loss surgery reduced their risk of cancer by a 42%.

It must be noted here, that obesity is linked to 20% of all cancers in women and about 14% in men. So a 40 odd percentage reduction in risk is quite substantial.

Apparently, the believe is that the surgery has some impact on the hormone levels.

The research done by this team has been quite extensive stretching for a period of over 10 years involving over 4000 individuals, half of which who had bariatric surgery as against the other half or so who received other forms of weight loss treatment.

Over the period the study was conducted, those who had surgery lost about 20kg as compared to those who did not losing only an average of 1.3kg. Regretfully the surgery appeared to have no effect on men’s cancer risk.

The beneficial effect of weight-loss surgery on women seemed to apply to a wide range of cancers.

However, exactly why the surgery had a beneficial effect remains a mystery - analysis could find no direct link with losing weight, or reducing food intake.

[This Heath report was published in the online edition of BBC News..Read the full article here. Obesity ops 'may cut cancer risk' Image from the BBC]