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Prognosis
Cohort study
Bariatric surgery is associated with improved long-term survival in severely obese US veterans
  1. Melinda Maggard-Gibbons1,
  2. Aaron J Dawes1,2,3
  1. 1Department of Surgery, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA
  2. 2VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, California, USA
  3. 3VA/Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, Los Angeles, California, USA
  1. Correspondence to : Dr Melinda Maggard-Gibbons Department of Surgery, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, 757 Westwood Plaza, B711, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA; mmaggard{at}mednet.ucla.edu

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebmed-2015-110181

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    Commentary on: Arterburn DE, Olsen MK, Smith VA, et al. Association between bariatric surgery and long-term survival. JAMA 2015;313:62–70.OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed

    Context

    Bariatric surgery is associated with improved health for severely obese individuals, including substantial weight loss and resolution of certain medical comorbidities. Some studies involving predominately young women with minor comorbid illnesses have also shown both short-term and medium-term mortality benefits of bariatric surgery. However, debate remains regarding the sustainability of health benefits and generalisability to select populations, including US veterans.

    Methods

    This study compared all-cause mortality rates for severely obese US veterans undergoing bariatric surgery between 2000 and 2011 to propensity score matched controls. Matching was based on age, sex, race, body mass index, diabetes status and geographic region. The authors used survival models (Kaplan-Meier and Cox) to compare groups up to a maximum …

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    Footnotes

    • Twitter Follow Aaron Dawes at @AaronDawesMD

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.