Weight reduction surgery saves and extends the lives of patients, based on a recent study that took 40 years to finish.
Published within the journal Obesity on Wednesday, the study focused on the all-cause and cause-specific mortality for bariatric surgery procedures.
The long-term study had 21,837 participants who had weight reduction surgery in Utah. Follow-up on the patients spanned as much as 40 years.
The team found that weight reduction surgery reduced the danger of premature death from obesity-related conditions, including cancer, diabetes and heart disease.
In response to the researchers, individuals who had one in all the 4 varieties of weight reduction surgery procedures (gastric bypass, gastric banding, gastric sleeve and duodenal switch) were found to be 16% less prone to die from any cause compared with those of comparable weight who didn’t undergo surgery.
For each females and males, a big drop in mortality rate was observed after bariatric surgery. To be exact, the mortality rates for heart problems, cancer and diabetes dropped by 29%, 43% and 72%, respectively.
“Deaths from heart problems decreased by 29%, while deaths from various cancers decreased by 43%, which is pretty impressive,” lead creator Ted Adams said, as quoted by CNN.
Adams is an adjunct associate professor in nutrition and integrative physiology on the University of Utah’s School of Medicine.
He continued, “There was also an enormous percentage drop — a 72% decline — in deaths related to diabetes in individuals who had surgery in comparison with those that didn’t.”
Nevertheless, the findings within the study weren’t limited to the positive effects of the load loss procedures on the mortality rate of the participants.
One downside that the scientists observed was younger people (18-34) who had weight reduction surgery had the next risk for suicide than those that didn’t have surgery.
“Rate of death from suicide was significantly higher in surgery versus non-surgery participants only within the youngest age at surgery participants,” the team wrote.
The authors hope their findings could help address the suicide rates within the younger age group by inspiring more aggressive pre-surgical psychological screening and post-surgery follow-up.
A previous study from Sweden published in 2013 presented similar findings to the brand new study. The older research, which spanned ten years, reported significant reductions in premature deaths after bariatric surgery.