Weight-loss surgery may cut death rate in obese patients

Obese individuals who undergo a weight loss surgery are less likely to face death, than those do not undertake a surgery, finds a new study. Being obese can increase an individual's risk of mortality from numerous diseases like heart attack, stroke and a number of cancers.

Bariatric surgery has shown to prevent obesity related mortality as well as morbidity, the researchers said. The findings showed that the mortality rate was higher in the non-surgical group (4.21 per cent) compared to the surgical group (1.11 per cent).

Mean follow-up time for the surgical group was 5.4 years and 5.5 for the non-surgical group. Heart disease, followed by cancer was the most common cause of death in this group.

However, the overall mortality decreased by 57 per cent in the surgery group, even after taking into consideration the age, previous comorbidity and other factors including sex, coronary heart disease, valvular disease, cancer, hypertension, diabetes, heart failure, stroke and atrial fibrillation.

"The study indicates that the overall all-cause mortality is considerably lower among obese individuals who undergo bariatric surgery compared to non-surgical obese individuals, and the differences lies mainly in cardiovascular disease and cancer," said Christina Persson from University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

The study population comprised 48,693 obese patients aged between 18-74 years. Of this 22,581 underwent bariatric surgery (gastric bypass 92.8 per cent) while the other 26,112 did not undergo the surgery. The results were presented at European Obesity Summit 2016, in Sweden recently.