"Comorbities associated with morbid obesity decrease life expectancy and impair quality of life," notes Pavlos Papasavas, M.D., one of the researchers at Western Pennsylvania Hospital. He and his colleagues followed 455 patients and collected data on medications used to treat comorbid diseases.
At follow-up, almost half (48.7 percent) of patients who took medications for high blood pressure preoperatively were now off medications. In addition, 92 percent of postoperative gastric bypass patients who took both oral medications for diabetes and insulin were off these medications at the time of their last follow-up. Another area of improvement was degenerative joint disease, with 32.5 percent of patients taking medications for this condition preoperatively, of whom 60 percent were off medications at follow-up. (Please see the attached abstract for a table summarizing all the findings.)
For the patients in this study the mean Body Mass Index (BMI) before surgery was 47. Patients with a BMI of 40 or more are candidates for bariatric surgery for obesity according to the 1991 NIH Consensus Panel Recommendations. The NIH Consensus Panel reduced the threshold BMI for bariatric surgery to 35 to 40 for patients with high-risk comorbid conditions such as life-threatening cardiopulmonary problems, diabetes or severe sleep apnea. A BMI of 40 is roughly equivalent to 100 pounds overwe
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Contact: Malaika Hilliard
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American College of Gastroenterology
1-Nov-2004