Obesity surgery may cut cancer risk

Washington, D.C. - Last week, Caelie Haines took her 14-year-old daughter to Six Flags Theme Park near Washington, D.C. The roller coasters made the teen ecstatic, but it wasn't just the thrill of the speed. It was the fact that her mother could finally ride with her.

Some obese people in the U.K. may be denied coverage for elective surgeries based on their weight.

"The last time we were there, I couldn't fit on the rides," Haines says. Their previous trip took place before her August 2006 weight-loss surgery, when she weighed 316 pounds, ABCNEWS reported.

Since the procedure, the 38-year-old has shed nearly 150 pounds. As she had hoped, her high blood pressure, sleep apnea and borderline diabetes went away. But she had never imagined that the surgery might protect her from the disease that has affected her mother -- cancer.

Bariatric surgery for weight loss may reduce a person's risk of developing cancer by about 80 percent, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. Severely obese people who underwent surgery had an 85 percent drop in breast cancer and a 70 percent decrease in colon cancer compared with people who didn't have surgery.

(Agencies)