Weight loss surgery also safeguards obese people against cancer

Bariatric surgery not only helps reduce weight, but lowers cancer risk among obese people

2014-06-04

(Press-News.org) Weight loss surgery might have more value than simply helping morbidly obese people to shed unhealthy extra pounds. It reduces their risk of cancer to rates almost similar to those of people of normal weight. This is the conclusion of the first comprehensive review article taking into account relevant studies about obesity, cancer rates and a weight loss procedure called bariatric surgery. Published in Springer's journal Obesity Surgery, the review was led by Daniela Casagrande of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. With bariatric surgery, a part of a patient's stomach is reduced to a small pouch. This pouch is attached directly to the small intestine, bypassing most of the rest of the stomach and the upper part of the small intestine to ensure long-term weight loss and to reduce the chances of early deaths due to severe obesity. Cancer rates in obese people are as high as 2.12 cases per 1,000 person-years.* Because previous studies suggested a relationship between bariatric surgery and reduced cancer risk among obese people, Casagrande and her colleagues set out to shed light on these claims. They contrasted and combined results from 13 relevant studies that focus on the incidence of cancer in patients following bariatric surgery. These include both controlled and uncontrolled studies, and the relevant information of 54,257 participants.

Their systematic review shows that bariatric surgery is associated with a reduction in the incidence of cancer among morbidly obese patients. They found that cancer only occurred in 1.06 cases per 1,000 person-years, up to 23 years after the surgery was performed. This is markedly better than the rate for the global population of obese people. Importantly, the effect of bariatric surgery was found within both controlled and uncontrolled studies. Four controlled studies showed that bariatric surgery was associated with a reduction in the risk of cancer.

It is still unknown whether the lower cancer rates following bariatric surgery are related to the metabolic changes associated with weight loss, or if lower body mass indexes (BMIs) following surgery result in earlier diagnosis and improved cancer treatment outcomes among patients. According to Casagrande, it is difficult to separate the effects of the surgery from the multiple associated changes it yields in patients. She believes that undergoing a surgical procedure of the magnitude of bariatric surgery raises awareness and possible earlier diagnosis of cancer among such patients. "Bariatric surgery is associated with reduced cancer risk in morbidly obese people," says Casagrande. However, she cautions that conclusions should be drawn with care because there was high heterogeneity among the studies. She continued that there were some limitations about the data available among the studies, and that variables associated with cancer should still be measured in prospective bariatric surgery trials.

INFORMATION: *Person-years is the product of the number of years times the number of members of a population who have been affected by a certain condition.

Reference: Casagrande, D.S. (2014). Incidence of Cancer Following Bariatric Surgery: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis, Obesity Surgery DOI 10.1007/S11695-014-1276-0

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Observed by Texas telescope: Light from huge explosion 12 billion years ago reaches Earth

2014-06-04

Intense light from the enormous explosion of a star more than 12 billion years ago — shortly after the Big Bang — recently reached Earth and was visible in the sky. Known as a gamma-ray burst, light from the rare, high-energy explosion traveled for 12.1 billion years before it was detected and observed by a telescope owned by Southern Methodist University, Dallas. Gamma-ray bursts are believed to be the catastrophic collapse of a star at the end of its life. SMU physicists report that their telescope was the first on the ground to observe the burst and to capture an ...

A new approach to diversity research

2014-06-04

When people work in socially homogeneous groups, they overestimate their own contributions to the group's success, according to a new study co-authored by an MIT scholar. In fact, in some cases such "self-serving bias" occurs to a degree about five times as great in homogeneous groups as in ethnically diverse groups. Such results raise a larger point, suggests Evan Apfelbaum, the W. Maurice Young Assistant Professor of Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and the lead author of the new study: Researchers have often used homogeneous social groups ...

NASA should maintain long-term focus on Mars as 'horizon goal' for human spaceflight

2014-06-04

WASHINGTON – Arguing for a continuation of the nation's human space exploration program, a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council concludes that the expense of human spaceflight and the dangers to the astronauts involved can be justified only by the goal of putting humans on other worlds. The report recommends that the nation pursue a disciplined "pathway" approach that encompasses executing a specific sequence of intermediate accomplishments and destinations leading to the "horizon goal" of putting humans on Mars. The success of this approach ...

Multilingual or not, infants learn words best when it sounds like home

2014-06-04

Los Angeles, London (June 04, 2014). Growing up in a multilingual home has many advantages, but many parents worry that exposure to multiple languages might delay language acquisition. New research could now lay some of these multilingual myths to rest, thanks to a revealing study that shows both monolingual and bilingual infants learn a new word best from someone with a language background that matches their own. While 1.5 year old babies are powerful word learners, they can have difficulty learning similar-sounding words (e.g., "coat" and "goat"). A string of previous ...

Shaken, not stirred: Control over complex systems consisting of many quantum particles

2014-06-04

This news release is available in German. Sometimes quantum particles behave like waves. This phenomenon is often used for high precision measurements, for instance in atomic clocks. Usually, only the wave properties of single particles play a role, but now researchers at the Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology, Vienna University of Technology have succeeded in quantum mechanically controlling hundreds of Rubidium atoms of an ultracold Bose-Einstein-condensate by shaking it in just the right way. Now, not only internal states of atoms can be used for ...

Five-question clinical tool the first to help screen risk of violence in military veterans

2014-06-04

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- A new brief, 5-question screening tool can help clinicians identify which veterans may be at greater risk of violence, according to a new study led by a UNC researcher. The study, published online by the American Journal of Psychiatry, is based on a national survey sample of veterans combined with a smaller, in-depth assessment sample. The screening tool, called the Violence Screening and Assessment of Needs (VIO-SCAN), asked veterans about financial stability, combat experience, alcohol misuse, history of violence or arrests, and probable posttraumatic ...

Mayo Clinic moves small-molecule drugs through blood-brain barrier

2014-06-04

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Researchers at Mayo Clinic have demonstrated in a mouse model that their recently developed synthetic peptide carrier is a potential delivery vehicle for brain cancer chemotherapy drugs and other neurological medications. The findings appear in PLOS ONE. "Not only have we shown that we can transport eight different molecules, we think this method will be less disruptive or invasive because it mimics a normal physiological process," says Mayo Clinic neuroscientist Gobinda Sarkar, Ph.D., the corresponding author of the study. The researchers are able ...

Finding the lost art of Angkor Wat

2014-06-04

Long-lost paintings have been discovered on the walls of Cambodia's ancient Angkor Wat temple, thanks to the keen observations of an Australian National University (ANU) researcher. The ancient paintings date back almost 500 years and depict deities, animals, boats and the temple itself, giving historians a new understanding of life in a relatively unknown period of Cambodia's history. Rock art researcher Noel Hidalgo Tan discovered the hidden images while working as a volunteer at an archaeological excavation in Angkor Wat during a university break in 2010. "I was ...

Four new genes confirmed to increase familial breast cancer risk

2014-06-04

SALT LAKE CITY— Four new genes have been added to the growing list of those known to cause increased breast cancer risk when mutated through the efforts of researchers at Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah, who lead an international consortium working to find more gene mutations that cause inherited breast cancer susceptibilities. "BRCA1 and BRCA2 aren't the whole story when it comes to inherited breast cancer risk. We've known for a long time that more genes had to be responsible and several have since been discovered, by us and by others," according ...

Preserving bread longer: A new edible film made with essential oils

2014-06-04

Essential oils have boomed in popularity as more people seek out alternatives to replace their synthetic cleaning products, anti-mosquito sprays and medicines. Now scientists are tapping them as candidates to preserve food in a more consumer-friendly way. A study from ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry reports the development of new edible films containing oils from clove and oregano that preserve bread longer than commercial additives. Nilda de F. F. Soares and colleagues note that the search for new ways to keep packaged food from spoiling has led some ...

Amid record year for dengue infections, new study finds climate change responsible for 19% of today’s rising dengue burden

New study finds air pollution increases inflammation primarily in patients with heart disease

AI finds undiagnosed liver disease in early stages

The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announce new research fellowship in malaria genomics in honor of professor Dominic Kwiatkowski

Weight loss surgery also safeguards obese people against cancer

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: