A US study highlighted a reduction in mortality in obese patients due to the use of bariatric surgery.Magazine published on January 25 obesity, However, work by a team at the University of Utah has mixed results, showing that these individuals are at higher risk of suicide.
Bariatric surgery aims to reduce a patient’s weight by changing the anatomy of the stomach or intestines to limit calorie absorption. However, it can have a significant impact on mental health. Researcher Ted Adams and his team found that compared with obese people who did not undergo surgery, people who had surgery were 2.4 times more likely to commit suicide. One of the reasons such interventions are often performed as a last resort when non-surgical therapies are ineffective.
To reach their conclusions, US researchers studied the results of bariatric surgery on nearly 22,000 patients, followed for up to 40 years. Each person who underwent surgery was compared with a person with similar characteristics, especially in terms of obesity, age and gender, but surgery was not resorted to. However, there are some questions about statistical reliability. In particular, there were no environmental factors among the parameters studied, although they play a dominant role in obesity.
self-destructive behavior
As noted by Olivier Ziegler, director of the Nancy Center for Obesity Specialization, this study yielded an overall positive assessment, as did other studies on the issue. As a result, all-cause mortality after bariatric surgery was reduced by approximately 16%. Mortality due to specific causes showed even more significant reductions, with cardiovascular complications at 29%, cancer at 43%, and diabetes at 73%.
On the other hand, we observed a non-negligible increase in mortality from chronic liver disease. According to Olivier Ziegler, this is due to the increased alcohol consumption that sometimes occurs. Patients with eating disorders before surgery find themselves in the painful situation because surgery limits the amount of food they can eat. Then some people fall into another addiction, such as alcoholism. When patients are unable to compensate for this deficiency, severe depression develops, leading to some observed suicides.
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