In a new study, researchers found that bariatric surgery can significantly reduce the risk of cancer—and especially obesity-related cancers—by as much as half in certain individuals.
This is the first study to show bariatric surgery significantly decreases the risk of cancer in individuals with severe obesity and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
The risk reduction is even more pronounced in individuals with NAFLD-cirrhosis.
The research was conducted by a team at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
It is known that obesity leads to certain problems, including cancer, but no one had ever looked at it the other way around—whether weight loss actually reduced the risk of those cancers.
This study showed that all cancers were decreased, but obesity-related cancers in particular were decreased even more.
Specifically, it showed a reduction in risk for all types of cancer by 18%, with the risk for obesity-related cancers being reduced by 25%.
When comparing cirrhotic versus non-cirrhotic patients, cancer risk was reduced by 38% and 52%, respectively.
The team looked at de-identified claims data of more than 98,000 privately insured individuals age 18 to 64 years old who were diagnosed with severe obesity and NAFLD between 2007 and 2017.
Of those, more than a third (34.1%) subsequently had bariatric surgery.
In addition to an overall reduction in cancer risk for these individuals, researchers found that bariatric surgery was linked to strong risk reductions in these individuals for the following obesity-related cancers: colorectal, pancreatic, endometrial and thyroid cancers, as well as hepatocellular carcinoma and multiple myeloma.
The results offer practical insight for clinicians and building blocks for future studies on the connection between NAFLD and cancer.
The study is published in Gastroenterology. One author of the study is Dr. Vinod K. Rustgi, professor of medicine.
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