Research
Hormonal
Bariatric surgery reduces the overall incidence and mortality of cancer, with a more pronounced effect in women than men.
Bariatric surgery is a highly effective intervention for reducing the risk of cancer and cancer-related mortality in people with obesity. The benefit is particularly strong for women, likely due to the reduction in hormone-dependent cancers. The risk reduction is directly linked to the amount of weight lost.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
A meta-analysis including 32 studies showed that bariatric surgery was associated with a significant reduction in the overall incidence of cancer (RR: 0.62, 95% CI: 0.46–0.84, P = 0.002) and cancer-related mortality (RR: 0.51, 95% CI: 0.42–0.62, p < 0.001)... While authors reported a significant decrease in risk of incident cancer in women (HR: 0.58, 95% CI: 0.44–0.77, p = 0.0001), this was not the case for men (HR: 0.97, 95% CI: 0.61–1.52, p = 0.90)
Why this rating
Based on meta-analyses and large prospective trials, though some studies had bias.
Source
Weight-centric prevention of cancer
Diego Añazco et al. · Obesity Pillars · 2024
DOI 10.1016/j.obpill.2024.100106
narrative_reviewCited 4×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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