Follow
A new study revealed that obesity increases the risk for ovarian cancer and now a new study supports the find. The study, which was published in the journal of Gynecologic Oncology (the April issue) has revealed that uterine cancer risks decrease by 81% following bariatric surgery, which is basically weight-loss surgery.
Want to Have Your Uterine Cancer Risks Decrease by 81%?
Uterine cancer is the number four cancer killer in women and we know the risk increases with age, but recent studies uncovered that obesity is linked to uterine cancer, aside from heart disease and diabetes.
Researchers discovered that the weight loss that follows bariatric surgery, which is used for morbidly obese patients when all other methods of weight loss have failed, significantly reduces the risk of cancer of the endometrium (uterus) in women.
If you are morbidly obese and nothing seems to work and you want to have your uterine cancer risks decrease by 81%, then maybe bariatric surgery is the solution for you.
The team that conducted the study (University of California-San Diego and the Moores Cancer Center) have revealed that almost two thirds of the adults in the United States are obese or overweight. The researchers analyzed the records of over 7 million patients in the Health System Consortium database and they identified around 100,000 patients who have had bariatric surgery and 44,000 who have had a uterine cancer diagnosis.
To put it blankly, a woman with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 40 has eight times a greater risk of developing endometrial cancer than that of a woman with a BMI of 25. Obviously, the more the BMI increases, the more likely the woman will develop uterine cancer, so as a natural conclusion, the weight loss as a result of bariatric surgery reduces a woman’s risk of developing uterine cancer.
How to qualify for bariatric surgery? Well, the patients must be severely obese, with a BMI of over 40. The surgery is no walk in the park, as it involves removing a large portion of the stomach or rerouting the small intestines to a smaller stomach pouch. Of course that lifestyle changes are vital for the success of the procedure.
Why does obesity cause uterine cancer? Basically it all has to do with estrogen. Extra adipose tissue (fat tissue) raises the estrogen levels which cause the formation of tumors. In the year 2010, 44,717 women in the United States were diagnosed with endometrial cancer and 8,402 died from it.
