Posts Tagged ‘bariatric surgery’

Bariatric surgery has a profound effect on the chronic disease of obesity. Diabetes goes into remission and hunger recedes. Metabolism finds a steadier state, more compatible with good health. But the billion-dollar question is, how? Make no mistake. This is a big puzzle. Now a series of publications over the last several weeks reveals the […]

Early in the pandemic, a couple of things were clear about COVID risk. First, and most important, age is a person’s biggest risk factor. But that’s obviously not a modifiable risk. Soon after that was apparent, another risk factor became apparent – obesity. The risk linked to obesity was not as great as age, but […]

A new study revives an old question. Isn’t the benefit of bariatric surgery for people with diabetes more than just weight loss? In the December issue of Diabetes Care, Blandine Laferrère and colleagues write: “Our data show the time course of changes in β-cell function after RYGB. The improvement in β-cell function after RYGB, but […]

Following closely on a landmark study of bariatric surgery and liver fat, today we have a new RCT comparing the effects of gastric sleeve and gastric bypass. In short, these two procedures work equally well. After one year, patients with both procedures had about a 20 percent reduction in liver fat. The other endpoint was […]

We have plenty of reasons to think that COVID might be a spark for growth in obesity care. First of all, untreated obesity leaves a person more vulnerable to bad outcomes with COVID. More data is suggesting that effective obesity care might reduce those risks. And then we have anecdotal reports telling us that uptake […]

New data this week in SOARD tells us once again that gastric bypass can produce impressive results over time for someone with severe obesity. After ten years, Su-Hsin Chang and colleagues found that their cohort of 1,104 patients had maintained an average 31 percent reduction in body weight. Best Results for White Women But it […]

NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis) is one of the most serious complications of untreated obesity. It’s very hard to treat. It can lead to liver failure, liver cancer, and death. So when a careful study of bariatric surgery shows an an 88 percent reduction in the risk of NASH progressing, this is big news. JAMA published this […]

We have an equity problem – in healthcare generally and in obesity specifically. Diversity, equity, and inclusion have been a key theme running through ObesityWeek® and thus, there’s plenty of content on this subject to absorb from the meeting. We’re just barely beginning to take it all in. But in a nutshell, serious obesity care […]

A decade ago, Medicaid expansion was supposed to be a real winner for better access to care. It was a sweet deal for states adopting it. Yet our polarized politics have meant that even now, after a decade, some states are still dragging their feet. That leaves two million people from 12 states in limbo […]

Well-controlled data for surgical procedures is hard to come by. This is especially true for bariatric surgery, where strong feelings come into play and thus, people aren’t willing to accept random assignments to a surgical procedure. So a new study in JAMA Surgery that gives us clarity about the safety of gastric sleeve operations is […]