Weight-loss surgery can also extend the lives of patients, according to a study

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The surgeries to lose weightbetter known as bariatrics, have been used for decades by people seeking effective and safe weight loss and a recent research reveals that, in addition to helping patients lose weight, these procedures can extend your life.

A new retrospective investigation with up to 40 years of follow-up shows significant reductions in death rates for all causes and for conditions with specific causes such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer in patients undergoing bariatric surgery compared with non-operated participants with severe obesity.

The new study published in Obesity, the flagship journal of The Obesity Society (TOS), builds on the mortality results reported by groups after gastric bypass surgery extending follow-up to 40 years, tripling the number of surgical patients, and using four, instead of one, bariatric surgical procedures.

The results revealed that the all-cause mortality was 16% lower in patients who underwent bariatric surgery than in those who did not undergo surgery. Mortality was lower in both men and women. Mortality after surgery decreased by 29%, 43% and 72% in the case of cardiovascular diseases, cancer and diabetes, respectively.

“Given that bariatric surgery has reduced mortality from all causes and from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer for decades compared with matched participants, the researchers note that the findings not only may increase interest in bariatric surgical treatment of severely obese patientsbut also stimulate even more important research related to the discovery of physiological and biomolecular mechanisms that lead to a non-surgical treatment that produces weight loss and an improvement in mortality similar to that achieved with bariatric surgery,” he says. Ted D. Adams, of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, and corresponding author of the study.

Bariatric surgery increases risks of suicide and liver disease

Although the researchers found that weight-loss surgery reduced death rates for several diseases, they also discovered that may lead to increased risk of death from chronic liver diseasein addition to higher rates of death by suicide.

Mortality rates from chronic liver disease in men and women were 83% higher in operated patients than in non-operated patients. The suicide hazard ratio was 2.4 times higher in the operated participants than in the non-operated ones, mainly in individuals aged between 18 and 34 years at the time of the intervention.

The study authors note that the rising suicide rates among younger patients undergoing bariatric surgery it can promote a more aggressive preoperative psychological examination and postoperative follow-up.

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