An Examination Of The Health Risks Following Gastric Bypass Surgery

As obesity continues to increase across the Western world people are becoming more and more aware of the health risks associated with being substantially overweight and of the increased death risk as a result of obesity. But just how far can these risks be lessened by bariatric surgery?

A recent study examined the histories of a large number of individuals who had bariatric surgery from the start of 1995 to the end of 2004 and found that roughly one percent of patients died within a year of their operation and that roughly 6 percent died within 5 years. When the figures had been adjusted for age and sex and matched against figures for the population at large they were discovered to be quite high. So what does this say about the ability of bariatric surgery to reduce the general risk to our health?

To answer this question we need to look beyond the headline numbers and find out just why these deaths happened and where the true difference lies between weight loss patients and the general population.

When you look at the detailed numbers two particular things stand out.

The first is the figure for deaths resulting from heart disease which was the leading cause of death in the weight loss patients and is well higher than that seen in the general population.

The second is the figure for deaths that resulted from suicide and drug overdoses that, while not formally classed as suicide, must nonetheless raise the question of whether or not such overdoses were really accidental. Within the population as a whole you may expect to find about 2 deaths from suicide in a group of the same size as that used in the study and yet the group of patients showed 16 suicides and 14 deaths from drug overdoses.

When we look at these findings and consider them alongside our general knowledge about individuals undergoing bariatric surgery then we can possibly understand this variation at least in part.

Despite the fact that obesity surgery is generally very successful it is often not done until individuals are suffering from other conditions and, while surgery can cure many of these conditions and reduce the risks from others, many individuals are still at some risk even after surgery. For example, in many cases patients remain troubled by things like diabetes and high blood pressure and it is perhaps not surprising that this section of the population at large demonstrates an increased risk of heart disease.

In addition, while weight loss surgery may result in a large weight loss many patients are still heavily overweight for a considerable time after surgery and some individuals will remain so for months or years to come.

Finally, the changes in lifestyle that follow surgery can be dramatic and many individuals find that depression sets in the weeks following their operation. It is a fact that a great deal of attention is given to the physical affects of gastric bypass surgery and the requirement for things like a strict diet and exercise but, frequently, very little more than lip service is paid to the psychological affects of surgery.

Time will tell the extent to which this explanation holds water but there should be little doubt that improved follow-up care for weight loss patients could go a long way towards finding a solution for this anomaly.

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