In evaluating whether to have bariatric surgery, consider its impact on health, healthcare costs and usage, and survival. Research demonstrates that bariatric surgery dramatically improves patients' health and helps keep them out of the hospital.
Bariatric Surgery Dramatically Improves Health. National data compiled from 136 scientific reports totaling bariatric surgical results of 22,094 patients1 showed that:
- 76.8% were cured of diabetes
- 86% improved diabetes
- 70% improved high cholesterol
- 61.7% were cured of high blood pressure
- 78.5% improved high blood pressure
- 85.7% were cured of sleep apnea
Bariatric Surgery Reduces Healthcare Usage, Costs. In another published study comparing healthcare usage among patients with morbid obesity patients who received bariatric surgery vs. those who did not, the number of hospitalizations for those who did receive bariatric surgery was half that of those who did not have the surgery. Total direct healthcare costs for the patients who did not have surgery were 45% higher than for bariatric surgery patients.2
Better Survival Rate for Bariatric Surgery Patients. McGill University compared five-year survival of their 5,746 patients with morbid obesity who were managed medically with 1,035 patients who underwent surgery, matched by sex, age, and duration of being obese.3 The results:
- Five-year mortality of 6.17% in the no surgery group
- Five-year mortality of 0.68% in the surgical group
1 Buchwald H., et al: Bariatric Surgery: A systematic review and meta-analysis, JAMA 292: 1724-1737, 2004
2 Christou NV et al. Ann. Surg., 240-416-422, 2004
3 Christou et al. Ann. Surg., 2004