Stunning Health Benefits with Bariatric Surgery

Every now and then, a study provides a stunning view of clinical reality that hides in plain sight. Ian Douglas and colleagues have published such a study in PLOS Medicine this week that paints an unmistakable picture of good clinical outcomes for bariatric surgery in the UK.

In their study of outcomes for bariatric surgery in 3,882 patients they found that it helped to prevent diabetes, hypertension, angina, heart attacks, and sleep apnea. They found that it helped to put hypertension and type 2 diabetes into remission. Oh, and they also found “dramatic weight loss, sustained at least 4 years after surgery.” Commenting on these results, the PLOS editor Bruce Neal said:

These results suggest that widening the availability of bariatric surgery in the UK could provide substantial health benefits for many people who are morbidly obese. Indeed, the researchers calculate that, if the associations seen in this study are causal (an observational study cannot prove that a treatment causes a specific outcome), bariatric surgery could prevent and/or resolve many tens of thousands of cases of hypertension and type 2 diabetes and prevent similar numbers of cases of other obesity-related illnesses among the 1.4 million morbidly obese people living in the UK.

So exactly why is it that so many barriers remain to accessing this life changing care for a serious chronic disease?

Click here to read the study and here to read more from Helio.

Stunning View of the World, photograph © Ted Kyle

Subscribe by email to follow the accumulating evidence and observations that shape our view of health, obesity, and policy.


 

December 23, 2015

One Response to “Stunning Health Benefits with Bariatric Surgery”

  1. January 05, 2016 at 8:56 am, am said:

    May I refer everyone to Puhl and Kyle, IOM commentary – 2014 – Pervasive Bias…