In addition to rapid and lasting weight loss and other health benefits, bariatric surgery is now associated with a 61% reduced risk of malignant melanoma, which is the deadliest skin cancer most closely associated with excessive sun exposure.
The new study will be released on Thursday at the European Obesity Conference in Vienna, Austria. The study also found that the risk of skin cancer in people undergoing bariatric surgery generally decreased by 42%. Among a group of 2,007 obese participants undergoing bariatric surgery in Sweden, the median follow-up period was 18 years.
In this study, subjects who chose surgery as an obesity treatment were compared with 2,040 obese Swedes. The control group had similar basic conditions as the surgical patients, including age, gender, height, cardiovascular risk factors, and psychological Social variables and personality traits, but no cuts.
A research team led by Magdalena Taube from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden believes that changing the risk of melanoma in subjects is deep weight loss. This finding supports the notion that obesity is a risk factor for melanoma, and shows that weight loss in obese patients can reduce the risk of increasing fatal cancer in many countries for decades.
The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2018, about 91,270 new melanomas will be diagnosed in the United States, with 55,150 males and 36,120 females. About 9,320 people will die from the disease. The organization also reported a recent increase in the incidence of melanoma: between 2008 and 2018, the number of new melanoma cases diagnosed each year increased by 53%.
