Survival Rates Significantly Raise after Bariatric Surgery

Author: Jody Cross

Two recent studies have shown that after gastric bypass surgery survival rates for the obese significantly increase. The two long-term studies, recently published in the New England Journal of medicine, found that obese people who had weight loss surgery cut their risk of dying within 7 to 10 years by 30 to 40 percent over those who did not have the surgery.

Details of the studies were reported in a recent Associated Press article by reporter Alicia Chang. The smaller of the two studies was a Swedish study, led by Dr. Lars Sjostrom of Goteborg University, which followed four thousand obese people for more than a decade. The study divided the participants into two groups. The first group had one of three versions of weight loss surgery, while the second group was given only standard diet advice. After more than a decade the surgery group had lost 14 to 25 percent of their original weight and kept it off; while the diet group had lost, and kept off, only 2 percent of their original weight.

The second study was larger. It was a U.S study, led by Ted Adams of the University of Utah. His group tracked nearly 16,000 people for an average of seven years. One group was severely obese people who had undergone gastric bypass surgery and they were compared to a control group of severely obese that had not undergone the surgery. The participants for the non-surgery group were selected using driver’s license records of height and weight.

Unlike the Swedish study, this study did not look at weight loss. However, it did look at survival rates. After seven years, 321 people from the non-surgical group had died, compared to 213 from the surgery group.

Another focus of the study tracked deaths from disease; the results were astonishing. Deaths from diabetes were 92 percent lower in the surgery group; from cancer 60 percent lower, and from heart disease 56 percent lower. The death rate was, however, higher for the surgery group from causes not related to disease. This category included accidents, suicides, and other causes. This puzzled the researchers.

If you suffer from morbid obesity, chances are you inherited a predisposition to it. Studies have shown that children who are adopted at birth are 80% more likely, when grown, to parallel a weight similar to their genetic parents, who they’ve never met; than to the parents who raise them.

Gastric bypass surgery, first performed in 1966, has for years, been the most popular form of weight loss surgery. A simpler surgical technique, called lap-band surgery, won FDA approval in 2001 and is gaining in popularity. This minimally invasive surgery is done laparoscopically, is reversible, and only requires an overnight hospital stay. Each year advances in surgical techniques are making for smaller incisions and quicker recovery time. Today both surgeries can be performed laparoscopically. Gastric bypass surgery does require a three or four day hospital stay and reversing it is difficult and is usually only done in cases of medical necessity.

Both types of surgeries have excellent success rates in terms of both weight loss and survival. Both have a fatality risk of less than 1 percent. They are, however, major surgeries and carry the associated risks which should be thoroughly discussed with a Board certified bariatric surgeon, who has performed many of the surgeries, and achieved excellent results.

Historically, insurance companies typically pay for the surgery only after several other avenues of medically supervised help have been exhausted since bypass surgery costs around $17,000 to $35,000. Furthermore, the surgery is not for everyone. Only people 100 pounds or more over their ideal weight are normally considered candidates for either version of the surgery. This kind of excess weight falls into a category called morbid obesity. The word “morbid” means causing disease or injury. Morbid obesity relates to a disease process where the accumulation of excessive fat causes life-threatening health problems. People die, not from being over weight, but from the strain it places on the body and its organs, leading to conditions of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, liver disease, and sleep apnea to name only a few. The finding of these studies may persuade insurance companies to offer gastric bypass surgery as an option more frequently.

The surgeries reduce the size of the “working” stomach. In the case of bypass surgery the “working” stomach is reduced from about the size of quart to about the size of a walnut. A similar effect is achieved with the lap-band surgery.

After gastric bypass surgery people eat less, a lot less; but feel full. Gone is the constant nagging hunger. The weight comes off fast, very fast. Overeating causes a state of distress which may lead to vomiting.

Last year in the United States alone 177,600 of these operations were performed; additionally, hundreds of thousands were performed world-wide. For now, weight loss surgery is probably the only thing out there that significantly increases survival rates for the severely obese.