For many patients gastric bypass surgery is very much a last resort and something to be put off as long a possible while they consider all of their choices. In fact, in the majority of cases patients are assisted in this by their doctor who will insist on a program of exercise and diet before referring a patient to a bariatric surgeon. But is this the correct approach?
Apart from the fact that most people agree that exercise and diet programs do not work and are a total waste of time for the vast majority of patients, there is excellent evidence to suggest that putting off surgery is putting patient’s lives at risk.
In a recently published study the records of more than 2,000 people who had gastric bypass surgery between 1995 and 2004 in the same medical center were studies. The team carrying out the study wanted to see whether there were any factors which could have been used to predict the risks facing these patients before they had surgery and the researchers identified 5 things that they felt increased a patient’s risk from surgery.
The first of the five factors was gender with women being at less risk than men. The second factor was a BMI (body mass index) in excess of 50. The third factor was age with patients under 45 years of age being at lower risk. The fourth was the presence of hypertension (high blood pressure), frequently linked to cardiovascular disease. The last factor was previous evidence of a blood clot in the lungs (pulmonary embolus) or a proclivity for this condition.
The researchers then awarded a point for the presence of each factor and divided the study group into those at high, medium and low risk depending on their scores. The then examined the death rates for these three groups and found that in the low risk group the death rate was 0.31%, in the medium risk group it was 1.9% and in the high risk group it was 7.56%.
Of course there is not much you can do about your gender but, when it comes to the remaining factors, the effect as far as the risks of obesity surgery are concerned are obvious. Ageing, continuing to gain weight and developing health problems all raise the risks posed by surgery. So, if you are suffering from morbid obesity, you ought to consider early surgery and balance the risks involved in waiting against the possibility of finding a successful alternative.
