There have been conflicting reports on just how useful weight loss surgery is for taking the burden off your heart. Well, a new study is showing that if you opt for the procedure known as bariatric surgery, you may, in fact, be reducing your risk of heart disease.
It’s the most common type of weight loss surgery. It involves stapling the stomach closed and then removing a portion of the small intestine and reattaching it closer to the stomach. The stomach is closed off so you eat less and you feel full a lot faster. The small intestine is altered so that you end up absorbing fewer calories from the foods that you do eat.
In a recent study from the Mayo Clinic, researchers found that patients who underwent this type of surgery seriously cut their risks of suffering from heart disease in comparison to people who followed non-surgical weight loss techniques.
The surgical group had an average risk of 37% of suffering from heart disease before their study began thanks to high cholesterol, blood pressure, a poor body mass index (BMI), and glucose levels. After the surgery and 3.3 years of follow-up, their risk had dropped to 18%. The control group that followed set exercise and diet advice ended the study with a 30% risk of heart disease — much higher than that of those in the control group.
The surgery was thought to have a significant impact over 10 years, preventing as many as four deaths and 16 cardiovascular problems in the patients involved.
Severely obese people may want to consider bariatric surgery, but this is not appropriate for many people. This is a major surgery that cannot be reversed and it is only intended for people with a BMI equal to or greater than 40. Some people with a BMI of 35 or higher can receive this surgery if they have many risk factors for diabetes, heart disease, or other such weight-related conditions.
If you do not fit in these categories, it’s best to seek out some other weight loss method instead.
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Tags: exercise, glucose
