Weight Loss Surgery Linked To Colon Cancer

Weight Loss Surgery Linked To Colon Cancer 

GET. YOUR. COLONOSCOPY.  

IT COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE.  Don't be scared. It's no big thing. Really. The preparation is harder than the procedure.  (My spouse is at this very moment, searching for a GI to make that appointment he canceled more than five years ago.  He's a high-risk patient with family history.)

Study -

Weight Loss Surgery Linked To Colon Cancer 

(Reuters Health) - Obesity is already linked to a higher risk of colon or rectal cancer, but a new study suggests this risk is even greater for obese people who have undergone weight-loss surgery.

Based on a study of more than 77,000 obese patients, Swedish and English researchers found the risk for colorectal cancer among those who have had obesity surgery is double that of the general population.

Though colorectal cancer risk among obese patients who didn't have the surgery was just 26 percent higher than in the general population, researchers said the results should not discourage people from going under the knife.

"These findings should not be used to guide decisions made by patients or doctors at all until the results are confirmed by other studies," said Dr. Jesper Lagergren, the new study's senior author and a professor at both the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and King's College London.

Each year more than 100,000 people in the U.S. have surgery to treat obesity.

Lagergren and his colleagues point out in their report, published in the Annals of Surgery, that obesity is tied to elevated risks for a number of cancers, including colorectal, breast and prostate (see Reuters Health story of November 3, 2011 here: reut.rs/t9sYxO).

Whether surgery to lose weight can affect those risks is uncertain.

Two earlier studies, one from the U.S. and the other from Sweden, found that the chances of obesity-related cancers decline after women have weight-loss surgery.

But an earlier study from Lagergren's group found the risks for breast and prostate cancers were unaffected by obesity surgery, and colorectal cancer risk increased.

To investigate that finding further, Lagergren's team collected 29 years' worth of medical records on more than 77,000 people in Sweden who were diagnosed as obese between 1980 and 2009. About 15,000 of them underwent weight loss surgery.

In the surgery group, 70 people developed colorectal cancer - a rate that was 60 percent greater than what would be expected for the larger Swedish population.

When the researchers looked only at people who had surgery more than 10 years before the end of the study period, the number of cancer cases was 200 percent greater than the expected risk for the general population.

In contrast, 373 people in the no-surgery group developed colorectal cancer, which was 26 percent more than would be expected in the population and that number remained stable over time.

A two-fold increased risk for colorectal cancer is not a "negligible risk increase, but it should not be of any major concern for the individual patient since the absolute risk is still low," Lagergren told Reuters Health in an email.

In the U.S., for instance, 40 out of every 100,000 women and roughly 53 out of every 100,000 men develop colorectal cancer each year.

Doubling that risk would make the annual figures 80 out of every 100,000 women and 106 out of every 100,000 men.

Lagergren said that more studies are needed to confirm his results before they should be included in clinical decision-making about whether patients should undergo weight-loss surgery.

The study results cannot prove that the surgery is the cause of the elevated cancer risk.

And, Lagergren says it's also not clear why the surgery might be tied to an elevated risk of colorectal cancer.

• One possibility is that dietary changes after surgery, and increasing protein in particular, could raise cancer risk, he speculated.
• Because the gut plays a significant role in the immune system, he added, "Another potential factor is that the bacteria that naturally reside in the intestines may change after surgery and alter future cancer risk."
• Lagergren noted that he also couldn't rule out the possibility that residual excess weight and weight gain after surgery might be involved.

SOURCE: bit.ly/10TcCGy Annals of Surgery, online March 6, 2013

The study -

Annals of Surgery 

http://journals.lww.com/annalsofsurgery/Abstract/publishahead/Increased_Risk_of_Colorectal_Cancer_After_Obesity.98506.aspx

Abstract

• Objective: The purpose was to determine whether obesity surgery is associated with a long-term increased risk of colorectal cancer.
• Background: Long-term cancer risk after obesity surgery is not well characterized. Preliminary epidemiological observations and human tissue biomarker studies recently suggested an increased risk of colorectal cancer after obesity surgery.
• Methods: A nationwide retrospective register-based cohort study in Sweden was conducted in 1980-2009. The long-term risk of colorectal cancer in patients who underwent obesity surgery, and in an obese no surgery cohort, was compared with that of the age-, sex- and calendar year-matched general background population between 1980 and 2009. Obese individuals were stratified into an obesity surgery cohort and an obese no surgery cohort. The standardized incidence ratio (SIR), with 95% confidence interval (CI), was calculated.
• Results: Of 77,111 obese patients, 15,095 constituted the obesity surgery cohort and 62,016 constituted the obese no surgery cohort. In the obesity surgery cohort, we observed 70 patients with colorectal cancer, rendering an overall SIR of 1.60 (95% CI 1.25-2.02). The SIR for colorectal cancer increased with length of time after surgery, with a SIR of 2.00 (95% CI 1.48-2.64) after 10 years or more. In contrast, the overall SIR in the obese no surgery cohort (containing 373 colorectal cancers) was 1.26 (95% CI 1.14-1.40) and remained stable with increasing follow-up time.
• Conclusions: Obesity surgery seems to be associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer over time. These findings would prompt evaluation of colonoscopy surveillance for the increasingly large population who undergo obesity surgery. 
• http://www.meltingmama.net/wls/2013/04/weight-loss-surgery-c onnected-to-increased-risk-of-colon-cancer.html

The exact reason I have never gone nuts eating 100 grams or more of protein, I keep it at 60 grams and that's it max.  My PCP warned me years ago how hard too much protein was on the kidneys especially for diabetics, she wouldn't even let me do Adkins when I was diabetic, she said it was too dangerous.  Too much of anything is never a good idea.  A healthy mix of real food without all the processing and chemicals and lab created garbage is what I try to eat I even stopped my beloved splenda. 

Heidi is right.  Overdoing things is not necessary.  I cut out most of the protein, gave up all the cheeses, cheesesticks, and shakes.  Most of my protein comes from Quest bars now.  There is no reason to over do any nutrients.  I don't even buy into the opinion that we can go back to absorbing calories but need supplements forever.  If you have never seen the movie Forks Over Knives, it is a real eye-opener.

Yeah I tend to agree that if we are absorbing calories the nutrients are getting absorbed also.  The deal is people don't know, they keep taking all these supplements that are probably not doing a thing and think they are right on target.  i stack the deck, I take a multivitamin and some calcium but I have never once taken iron or any of the million other things they say well need and my labs have been perfect all along.  For those people who are sick from malnutrition and missing nutrients I would love to see what their diet consists of, because I bet it is completely devoid of anything that is healthy.  They say we are the fattest most unhealthy people in the world for a reason, you do not get enough nutrition from junk, no one does, not us not normal people.

Where did you get the idea I had little malabsorption?  And where on earth do you see me giving advice.  I state my opinion based on my experience based on living with rny for 8 years and having labs drawn that have always been within the normal range the entire time.  I believe we absorb Vitamin D through sunshine, so I partake of the sun, I believe we absorb healthy vitamins through our food so I eat healthy, I don't believe what is created in a lab is good for us.  The multitude of auto immune diseases that now exist scare me and the fact they coincided with the American diet being more processed and less nutritious is alarming.  Everyone should do what they feel is right for their body.  If my doctor told me I need to take something because my labs were low I would but since I have never taken more then a chewable multis and calcium and sublingual b-12 I will not be starting anything else any time soon.  And for me chewables make sense, if your body needs to breakdown the nutrients in pills be allowing them to dissolve in water and you don't drink water with your food, how much of what you are taking really dissolves in enough time to become beneficial.  As I state I do what makes sense to me, what works for me.  What everyone else does is their business not mine.

You got it right! Processed foods, less nutritious foods and now all these autoimmune diseases that are rising at alarming rates, I'll take my whole foods any day!

After a long time I got something fresh and quality content on related topic. I searched a lot for the related material but got almost replica work. Keep it up! It is really very informative.