Bariatric surgery reduces risk of cancer and diabetes, experts say

Bariatric surgery, by which the stomach is reduced, can lower the risk of cancer, according to a study published this month in the British Journal of Surgery, while it has become the only alternative for many cases of diabetes, according to experts from the Cleveland Clinic, a network of hospitals.

According to a study published this month by a team of French scientists, after looking at data from more than a million patients between 2010 and 2019, they were able to verify an 11% reduction in the risk of obesity-related cancers in those who underwent an operation of bariatric surgery.

As doctor Raúl Rosenthal of the American Cleveland Clinic, whose centers treat this type of case from all over the world, explained to Efe, this intervention has become the best alternative for more than a dozen types of cancer and for many cases of diabetes, but it remains a rare intervention in the United States.

Obesity is associated with 40% of cancers diagnosed in the United States, and that rate rises to 55% for women due to cancers of the uterus, ovaries, or breast.

But also cancer of the colon, pancreas, esophagus, liver, kidney or stomach, among others, can be favored by obesity.

Rosenthal, based at the Cleveland Clinic Weston in Florida, explained to Efe that many of these diseases can be treated with fast, minimally invasive bariatric surgery.

A FAST AND EFFECTIVE OPERATION

The most frequent type of bariatric surgery, Rosenthal describes, is the so-called “gastric sleeve”, which consists of reducing the stomach by removing a large part of it, and goes from being “a kind of large balloon to a finite sleeve”.

This has two effects on the patient: on the one hand, they have less capacity to store food, but they also lack the hunger hormones removed with the excised part, so their appetite is reduced.

The operation lasts 45 minutes, and the patient only has to spend 24 hours in the hospital. In a week the patient returns to normal activities.

“With weight loss, diabetes is cured in many cases,” which 30% of obese people suffer from, blood pressure and sleep disorders are regulated,” added Rosenthal.

A VERY SPECIAL CASE

The doctor recalls the recent dramatic case of one of his patients, 32 years old, married with children who had a serious heart problem and needed a heart transplant, but his case was more complex due to his obesity.

“We did gastric surgery and after three months an organ was obtained, it was transplanted and the man returned to his normal life”, celebrates Rosenthal.

In the US there are about 30 million candidates for bariatric surgery, but only 250,000 are performed a year, or 1%, Rosenthal laments.

The “denial” of patients, who do not see themselves as candidates; the fear of surgery and the cost, since some insurances do not cover the intervention, are responsible for this low percentage.

Source-listindiario.com