For those who are considering bariatric surgery, a new study from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden provides a compelling reason to undergo the procedure: It lowers the incidence of heart attack and stroke and decreases the number of cardiovascular-related deaths among patients.
In order to examine the association between bariatric surgery, weight loss, and cardiovascular events, researchers compared two separate groups of over 2,000 obese patients each. One group was composed of patients who had undergone bariatric surgery, while the other had received only standard care. After a median of 14 years of follow-up, according to the just-published results in the Journal of the American Medical Association, there were only 28 cardiovascular deaths reported in the surgery group a significantly lower number than the 49 among the control group. Furthermore, the occurrence of first-time heart attack or stroke was also significantly reduced in the bariatric surgery patients compared to those who received only standard care.
Bariatric surgery, like any surgery, carries risks, but ACSH s Dr. Ruth Kava believes that, for severely obese people (those with a body mass index over 40), it still seems to be the most effective long-term treatment. This study is just more confirming evidence that losing weight with bariatric surgery confers many benefits, not least of which is a decrease in adverse cardiovascular events and death, she says.
