Results were obtained from a long-term study of more than 30,000 Cleveland Clinic patients from 2004 to 2017. All patients have an obesity index of 35 or higher and were considered by medical professionals to be “class 2” or “medium risk” obesity.
Researchers followed up approximately 5,000 patients between the ages of 18 and 80 who underwent gastric bypass or gastric sleeve surgery during the study period. None of the people studied had previously been diagnosed with cancer.
In addition, the chances of developing or dying obesity-related cancers such as ovarian and pancreatic cancers are significantly reduced. During the study, 2.9% of patients who underwent surgery developed cancer, while 4.9% of the corresponding patients developed cancer. 0.8% died compared to 1.4% of non-surgical patients. The effects were seen in full and seemed to be independent of age, gender and race.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 1.7 million new cancer cases were reported in 2019 alone. In addition, as of March 2020, nearly 42% of adults in the United States were obese.
“Given the growing prevalence of obesity, obesity-related cancers are a major public health concern,” said Ali Aminian, director of the Cleveland Clinic’s Institute for Obesity Metabolism and lead author of the study. Says. “Helping a patient lose weight can significantly reduce that risk.”
According to industry groups, obesity surgery has been the focus of attention as a treatment for obesity in recent years, with an estimated 256,000 such surgeries in the United States in 2019. Researchers have stated that “significant weight loss” is needed to reduce the risk of cancer.
Other factors may be involved — it is unclear whether surgical patients made healthier lifestyle choices or non-surgical patients hesitated to participate in cancer screening. Few patients were neither black nor white, so further research was needed.
