Weight-Loss Surgery Corrects Metabolic Syndrome
October 18, 2004
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Gastric surgery for obesity is extremely effective in treating the metabolic syndrome, the cluster of disorders that increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes, doctors in Taiwan report.
Few treatments have been effective long-term for severe obesity, Dr. Wei-Jei Lee and colleagues at En-Chu Kong Hospital in Taipei note in their report in the Archives of Surgery.
The team followed 645 consecutive morbidly obese patients who underwent laparoscopic weight-reduction surgery -- either stomach banding or gastric bypass.
The metabolic syndrome had been diagnosed in 52 percent of the subjects, who had at least three of the five conditions characteristic of the syndrome -- high blood pressure, high blood fats, high blood sugar, low levels of "good" HDL cholesterol, and a large waist.
One year after the gastric surgery, the metabolic syndrome had resolved in 96 percent of the patients. These patients lost nearly one third of their initial body weight, on average about 80 pounds.
Average systolic blood pressure decreased to normal, and cholesterol, triglyceride, and glucose levels all dropped significantly.
"Obesity surgery, therefore, should be highly recommended for the treatment of morbidly obese patients with the metabolic syndrome," Lee's group concludes.
These findings are "provocative but may be overstated," Dr. Danny O. Jacobs comments in an accompanying editorial.
Jacobs, a surgeon at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, questions if these findings are broadly applicable to all patient populations, and wonders if the metabolic syndrome should be considered cured after only a 1-year follow-up.
"Much more research is needed," he writes, before doctors recommend gastric surgery more widely for obese patients.
Source:www.reuters.com
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