Belly Fat Removal Reduces Skin Cancer Risk in Mice

Researchers found surgical removal of abdominal fat from mice fed with a high-fat diet reduces the risk of ultraviolet-light induced skin cancer. The cancer type mentioned is the most prevalent cancer in the United States with more than 2 million new cases each year.

However Rutgers scientists have revealed that they don't know if the same can be applied to humans as well.

Studies still need to determine if fat removal procedures would decrease cancer risk in humans.

"We don't know what effect fat removal would have in humans," said Allan Conney, professor of Pharmacology and director of the Susan Lehman Cullman Laboratory for Cancer Research at the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy.

"We would like to encourage epidemiologists to study whether there is a lower incidence of sunlight-induced skin cancer in people who have had liposuction surgery to remove fat tissue," he said.

For more than a decade, Conney and his colleague Yao-Ping Lu have been studying how caffeine and exercise, which also reduces tissue fat, work to block UV-induced skin cancer.

Advertisement

Despite the multiple human epidemiological studies that link coffee intake to a decrease in nonmelanoma skin cancer risk, just how and why coffee protects against the disease is still a mystery.

In this new skin cancer study, Rutgers researchers discovered that surgical removal of abdominal fat from obese mice fed a high-fat diet had between 75-80 percent fewer UV-induced skin cancers than mice that did not undergo fat-removal surgery.

Advertisement

Although scientists know that the tissue fat may play a role in tumor formation, there has been little research on the molecular mechanisms of how a high-fat diet increases the formation of skin cancer.

This new study suggests that abdominal fat in mice secretes proteins that increase the risk of cancer.

Once the original fat tissue is removed, the biochemical properties of new fat tissue that appear after surgery are less damaging.

While it is well known that decreased calorie-intake, low-fat diets and physical exercise is suggested for treating obesity, preventing cancer by surgically removing tissue fat still needs to be explored.

"It would be interesting to see if surgical removal of fat tissue in animals would prevent obesity-associated lethal cancers like those of the pancreas, colon and prostate," Conney said.

"Whether removal of tissue fat in humans -- which has certain risks -- would decrease the risk of life-threatening cancers in humans is not known," he added.

This study had been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Source-ANI