Background: Bariatric surgery is a treatment for severely obese patients.We examined the efficacy of bariatric surgery, addressing three questions: 1) "What is the overall weight reduction following bariatric surgery?" 2) "What complications are associated with bariatric surgery?" 3) "What impact does weight loss have on obesity-related comorbidity?" Methods: Fixed and random effects meta-analyses were used to determine the amount of weight reduction following bariatric surgery. The influence of a variety of co-variates that could affect study results was examined. Information from evidencebased sources was used to explore the impact of weight loss on comorbidities. Results: Meta-analyses results were affected by loss to follow-up, and within-study heterogeneity of variance. Therefore, results were pooled from studies with complete patient follow-up. Meta-analysis of six studies reporting weight loss at 1 year and four studies with mean follow-up of 9 months to 7 years demonstrated BMI reductions of 16.4 kg/m2 and 13.3 kg/m2, respectively. Weight reduction following bariatric surgery may be associated with improvements in risk factors for cardiac disease including hypertension, type 2 diabetes and lipid abnormalities, and may decrease the severity of obstructive sleep apnea. Conclusion: Bariatric surgery is appropriate for obese patients (BMI>40 kg/m2 or ≥35 kg/m2 with obesity-related comorbidity) in whom non-surgical treatment options were unsuccessful. Additional research is needed to examine the long-term benefits of weight loss following bariatric surgery, particularly with respect to obesity-related comorbidities.
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Monteforte, M.J., Turkelson, C.M. Bariatric Surgery for Morbid Obesity. OBES SURG 10, 391–401 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1381/096089200321594246
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1381/096089200321594246