Research reveals benefits of stomach-stapling surgery

New Swedish research is adding weight to Canadian studies showing the health benefits of stomach-stapling surgery for people who are obese.

In bariatric or stomach-stapling surgery, doctors shrink the stomach to restrict a patient's diet.

Investigators in Sweden compared obese people who had the surgery to those who received conventional treatments. Participants were followed for up to 10 years.

The researchers found an average weight loss of 23 per cent among the surgery group after two years, compared to 0.1 per cent in the control group. The surgical patients also showed improvements in rates of type-2 diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

Those who had surgery were also more active on average, the team found.

In a commentary accompanying the Swedish study in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Caren Solomon and Robert Dluhy conclude the surgery offers a long-term solution for obese patients.

"Bariatric surgery is currently the most successful approach to 'rescuing' patients with severe obesity and reversing or preventing the development of several diseases associated with obesity," the pair wrote.

The Swedish study doesn't draw any conclusions about whether people who receive the surgery live longer or if it costs the health-care system less money.

But earlier this year, Dr. Nicolas Christou of Montreal published two studies showing long-term savings and longer lives from the surgery.

• FROM JAN. 5, 2004: Effective weight-loss surgery hard for Canadians to access

In Canada, thousands are waiting for the operation, which few centres offer. Hospital administrators say they can't afford the heavy-duty equipment, counsellors and dieticians needed.

"It is extremely cost-effective for the single-payer medicare to invest in having these people operated to save their lives and to save ourselves money," said Christou, who attributes part of the availability problem to negative attitudes toward the obese.

Since 0.25 per cent of surgical patients in the Swedish study died and 13 per cent had surgical complications, only the most obese should take the risk, said Dr. Tom Ransom, an endocrinologist in Halifax.

"To be a candidate for this kind of surgery, one has to have complications of obesity and have failed conventional measures to lose weight," said Ransom.