Skin cancer: how does it relate to weight?

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            In case of overweight, weight loss can help reduce the risk of skin cancer, including malignant melanoma? It seems that this is the case.

Excess weight, and in particular obesity, is accompanied by an over-risk "clearly demonstrated" many cancers, including cancer of the skin, says The Daily of the Doctor. A statistical link has been described for a few years and we evoke a series of physiopathological factors (inflammation, hormones …). Previous research has shown that reducing obesity slows down the growth dynamics of malignant melanoma.

A Swedish team (University of Gothenburg) badyzed data from about 4000 men and women aged 37 to 60 years, obese at baseline (BMI> 34) and followed for 18 years. The group was split into two "arms" of similar quantitative importance

• Bariatric Surgery . Or obesity surgery. A 25% weight loss was recorded in the first year after surgery, and the BMI stabilized at 15 to 20% less than the initial BMI.

• No treatment specific charge . It is referred to as a "control group", matched for age, bad, cardiovascular risk factors, personality traits or psychosocial variables.

What is observed? During the reporting period, individuals who had bariatric surgery had a lower risk of 42% developing skin cancer, and 61% when isolating malignant melanoma. No additional factor (alcohol, diabetes, tobacco …) interferes with these results. The Physician's Daily adds: "This constitutes an indirect confirmation of the physiopathological links between obesity and skin cancer, adding to it the notion of reversibility of the harmful effects of obesity" .