Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease: It’s never too late to lose weight

It’s been well known for some years that bariatric surgery can reduce your risk of cardiovascular events such as strokes or heart attacks. This data comes from the long running Swedish obesity study.

Bariatric Surgery Can Lower 2nd Heart Attack Risk

A recent publication, again from Sweden, has demonstrated that people with a BMI of over 35, who’ve had a previous heart attack, who then have bariatric surgery lower their risk of a second heart attack, other cardiovascular events, heart failure and death, compared to people who did not have weight loss surgery. This study is published in Circulation which is the flag ship journal of the American Heart Association.

The study looked at data from 2005 to 2018, of over a thousand patients who’d had heart attacks and divided them into two groups, one with surgery and one without. The average BMI in both groups was 40, patients were also matched for gender, age, health status and health history. The data was gathered with follow up of up to 8 years.

Bariatric Surgery Improved a Range of Associated Conditions

The researchers found that bariatric surgery was associated with a lower risk of heart attack and a lower risk of new onset cardiac failure. The risk of death in the surgery group was half of that in the non-surgery group. The researchers noted that not only did the patients obviously have reduction in weight but they had significant improvements in sleep apnoea, blood pressure, cholesterol and more than half of the patients also experienced improvement in Type 2 diabetes.

Although this was not a randomised prospective study, it still provides strong evidence that even in patients who have experienced a sentinel event such as a heart attack, weight reduction surgery can significantly improve their long term survival.

If you interested in being part of the team approach to weight-loss, book in for a free consultation here when you can find out how we work and what to expect.

* Dr Lockie has been awarded Leading Contributor status of the BSR for the past 4 years. Read more here.

Read more here on Dr Lockie's record of success according the the BSR.