Bariatric surgery reduces risk of all-cause death

Patients who underwent bariatric surgery have considerably lower all-cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality, with the largest absolute effects seen in men and in those aged ≥55 years, according to a recent study.

“Mortality after bariatric surgery has been previously studied, but cohort selection bias, completeness of follow-up, and collection of confounders have limited the inference of results,” the authors said.

This population-based matched cohort study assessed the association between bariatric surgery and all-cause mortality in 13,679 patients who went through the procedure from January 2010 to December 2016 and in 13,679 matched nonsurgical individuals in Ontario, Canada.

The overall mortality rate after a median follow-up of 4.9 years was lower in the surgery group compared with the nonsurgery group (1.4 percent vs 2.5 percent), with a lower adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of overall all-cause mortality (HR, 0.68, 95 percent CI, 0.57–0.81).

Patients aged ≥55 years had a 3.3-percent (95 percent CI, 2.3–4.3 percent) absolute risk reduction, with a lower HR of mortality in the surgery group (HR, 0.53, 95 percent CI, 0.41–0.69). Although the relative effects observed were comparable across sex, men showed greater association in absolute terms.

In addition, surgery resulted in reduced cardiovascular mortality (HR, 0.53, 95 percent CI, 0.34–0.84) and lower cancer mortality (HR, 0.54, 95 percent CI, 0.36–0.80).

This study, however, was limited by its observation design.