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Suicides up after weight-loss surgery (Pretoria News)

Among people who have undergone so-called bariatric surgery for obesity, death rates are higher than seen among other people of the same age, new research shows.

published Sat, 03 Nov 2007 07:49:35 GMT

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[Kenyar]

ok...can we talk about this??? doc???

[Rachael]

The article says:

Among people who have undergone so-called bariatric surgery for obesity, death rates are higher than seen among other people of the same age, new research shows.

But other than age, what are they comparing this to? Other people the same age who were the same morbidly obese weight or other people the same age of normal weight?

And it also gives an age group (something like 20-34) where there is a greater evidence of coronary death happening more often. Again, it only compares age. Sometimes you hear of a young person dropping dead while an older person survives 2, 3, or more heart attacks. Older people have been around longer and have built up more collateral circulation - which is why exercise is so important - to build up that collateral circulation. But again, they are talking about people who were morbidly obese, had surgery and are comparing only age.

Who knows whether the people having bariatric surgery would have still had a heart attack - maybe even earlier had they not had surgery?

Who knows how many of those same people would have committed suicide had they not had surgery?

I appreciate the numbers, but I'm not sure what they mean as it seems to me that comparing only age doesn't cover everything that needs to be looked at when making a statement like that.

But that is just my opinion. But it is intersting.



Anyway, those are my thoughts.

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by Rachael

The article says:

Among people who have undergone so-called bariatric surgery for obesity, death rates are higher than seen among other people of the same age, new research shows.

But other than age, what are they comparing this to? Other people the same age who were the same morbidly obese weight or other people the same age of normal weight?

And it also gives an age group (something like 20-34) where there is a greater evidence of coronary death happening more often. Again, it only compares age. Sometimes you hear of a young person dropping dead while an older person survives 2, 3, or more heart attacks. Older people have been around longer and have built up more collateral circulation - which is why exercise is so important - to build up that collateral circulation. But again, they are talking about people who were morbidly obese, had surgery and are comparing only age.

Who knows whether the people having bariatric surgery would have still had a heart attack - maybe even earlier had they not had surgery?

Who knows how many of those same people would have committed suicide had they not had surgery?

I appreciate the numbers, but I'm not sure what they mean as it seems to me that comparing only age doesn't cover everything that needs to be looked at when making a statement like that.

But that is just my opinion. But it is intersting.



Anyway, those are my thoughts.

Also, what exactly is "so-called bariatric surgery?"

Among people who have undergone so-called bariatric surgery for obesity, death rates are higher than seen among other people of the same age, new research shows.

And again, these people the "same age," where did that group come from?What risk personal and family risk factors do they have?

It is intersting, but I just feel like something is missing - More information would be nice - like exactly what is "so-called bariatric surgery?" They say: residents who underwent a bariatric operation such as stomach stapling or gastric bypass between 1995 and 2004

Such as stomach stapling or gastric bypass? Were these open gastric bypass or laparoscopic bypass procedures? Did this then include Lap Band? BPD/DS? Some of these procedures? All of them?

And again, who ARE these other people the same age? How were they selected for this study? Are they totally random with age being the ONLY only factor?

[DocSanae]

Okay, I think the author of this particular article misread the orginal report. Or, may even have NOT read the abstract of the medical article, much less the complete paper. It may even be that this author just picked up on a news article that picked up on a news article, that picked up on a news article (remember the message game you played as a kid?) and everything got distorted, with the author picking up only what he WANTS to hear (sound familiar?) than pick up what he NEEDS to hear.
There were a number of news articles in this same section a couple of weeks back, which was pretty much accurate in reporting the results of the study. Given the time lag between then and now, I am not surprised that someone will just pick up the minus (where there were a heck of a lot more pluses than minuses in the original paper) and write it up just for sensationalism.
Simply goes to prove how ignorant the author is.

The original study was published in a peer reviewed medical journal of a surgical society--I have a copy of the abstract of the article at work not here, so I can't give you the exact reference right now-- which stated that:
Between the control group and the post op group, the death rate of the post op group went down for all causes with the exception of suicide. The author of the orignal article hypothesized that the reason suicide rates went up was because of the depression that is not taken care of as it should be, post op, which indicates the necessity of more intensive post op support.