Weight-loss surgery to control obesity may also cut cancer risk for people who are overweight, two recent studies from Canada and Brazil suggest. The treatment for obesity is already known to reduce heart disease and diabetes, but now Canadian researchers reported that gastric bypass surgery decreases the incidence of cancer by 80 percent over the five years following the procedure, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The study involved 49 obese patients who were taking steroids and other immunosuppressant medications to treat chronic inflammatory diseases and autoimmune diseases. Researchers from McGill University in Montreal found that the people who underwent bariatric surgery saw reductions in particular in the risk for breast and colon cancer.

Incidence of two of the most common tumors, breast and colon, were reduced by 85 percent and 70 percent respectively, said Dr. Nicolas Christou of McGill University in Toronto, according to the same source.

The Canadian study was conducted by Dr Nicolas Christou of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and the Brazilian study was conducted by Dr Alfredo Halpern, of the University of São Paulo, and colleagues. The results of the studies were presented to the 25th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery, in Washington DC and to The Endocrine Society’s 90th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.

An estimated 205,000 Americans had gastric surgery last year, up from 23,100 in 1997, according to the bariatric surgery society, Newsday.com reported.