Weight-loss surgery slashes cancer risk

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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. 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. 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. There's an old misconception that this is cosmetic surgery. But actually, people who are overweight don't live as long because a lot of them develop weight-related health problems that shorten their lives. What we see in all these studies is that when people lose the weight, their health gets better.