GASTRIC BYPASS MAY CUT CANCER

Gastric bypass surgery- a treatment for obesity that is already known to reduce heart disease and diabetes-decreases the incidence of cancer by 80 percent over the five years following the procedure. Canadian researchers reported Wednesday.    The incidence of two of the most common tumors, breast and colon, were reduced by 85 and 70 percent respectivly, Dr. Nicolas Christou of McGill University in Toronto said.    The study confirms the finds of two papers last August that showed the surgery reduced overall deaths from cancer. The new study goes a step further by showing reductions in the incidence of several specific types of cancer, said Dr. Philip Schauer of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, who was not involved in the study.     "This is a really powerful information,"said Schauer, who is the immediante past president of the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatic Surgery. "It reaffirms that obesity is a profound risk factor for cancer" and shows that "weigh loss does seem to affect the developement of new cancers."    But Dr. Edward H. Phillips, a bariatric surgeon at Los Angeles' Cedar-Sinia Medical Center, was skeptical about the findings because cancer takes a long time to develop  and the patients were only studied for five years.    Christou countered that by saying that many of the patients had undergone surgery as much as 15 years be fore the start of the study, leaving plenty of time for the cancers to develop.    There are two main types of bariatic surgery. The simplest is banding, in which a silicon band is placed around the stomach to reduce its capacity allowing the patient to feel full after eating much less food.     In the gastric bypass, the stomach is sewn shut to reduce its capacity to three or four ounces, and the intestines are connected directly to the newly created pouch, bypassing part of the area where food absorption occures. This is generally a more invasive surgery but produces  greater weight loss.     An estimated 205,000 Americans underwent the surgery last year, according to the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery This was in the Huntsville Times yesterday. I thought ya'll might be interested in reading. Love Miss Mary