According to Reuter Health, in a small long-term study, it was shown that obese patients who had endured gastric bypass surgery were half as likely to diet as those who did not have the surgery at all. While the study saw little change in death rates in the first two to three years following surgery, nearly 10 years after surgery the numbers were astounding. Ultimately, even diabetic patients who had surgery had a better chance of survival with the help of gastric bypass surgery.
“There’s really limited long-term follow-up data, especially comparing bariatric surgery to no surgery or the usual medical care,” Dr. Peter Hallowell, a surgeon with the University of Virginia Health System and the study’s senior author said. “We’re hoping to fill that void with a study like this.” The gastric bypass surgery divides the stomach into two different portions while connecting the smaller upper part directly to the small intestine.
The National Institutes of Health reports that candidates for the procedure are those with a BMI of 40 or more or 35 and above with diabetes or hypertension or other comorbidities. A BMI of 30 to 39.9 is considered obese and above 40 is considered morbid obesity.
About the Study
As first reported in the American Journal of Surgery, researchers carefully matched 430 obese patients who had surgery to 401 patients who did not, but had similar health situations. While the researchers found little difference in the first two years after surgery and three years for diabetes patients, they did after ten years of follow-up.
Nearly 6.5% of all of the surgery patients had died at this time compared to nearly 13% of similar patients who did not have surgery. When the research team looked at patients who just had diabetes, they found that 10% of the gastric bypass group and 19% of the matched non-surgery patients had died. “If you’ve tried dieting, exercise and medical management and that’s all failed, then you really should consider a surgical option – especially if you have diabetes,” Hallowell said.
According to the study, only 1-2% of patients who are eligible for weight loss surgery in general, not just gastric bypass surgery, actually have it. Perhaps this is because people don’t understand that the procedures are indeed safe. “The current data of what we consider ‘early mortality’ in the first 30 days is basically about two people in about 1000, which is less than the mortality rate associated with having a gallbladder removed and it’s getting down on the order of having your appendix removed,” he said.
The research team acknowledges that despite their carefully conducted matching procedure, they may be some unmeasured differences between the two groups; however the findings do bring to light how much weight loss surgery can influence a patient’s health.