According to researchers at the Tufts University, the University of California-Davis and Oregon Health and Sciences Center, weight loss after bariatric surgery can improve the cholesterol levels in obese women within one year. Results of their research were published in the August 2010 issue of the Journal of Lipid Research.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health recommends this surgery for obese people with body mass index (BMI) of 40 or more. Obese people with BMI of 35 and suffering from diabetes also undergo this surgery.
Several research studies conducted in past revealed that it lead to treatment of diabetes, reduction in the risk factors of heart diseases and lowering of death rates from 40 percent to 23 percent.
How Bariatric Surgery Weight Loss Reduces the Heart Ailments Risk?
- Cholesterol levels in the blood is closely related to obesity condition and risk of heart ailments.
- Lipoprotein profile is the blood test carried out to find the levels of all the three forms of cholesterol, namely, the HDL,LDL and Triglycerides.
- Lipoproteins are the carrier molecules which help these insoluble cholesterol forms to get transported along the blood stream.
- The effect of this surgery on lipoprotein profile of obese people was not studied earlier.
- 19 obese participants who volunteered for the study helped in collecting the data before and after the surgery by providing their blood samples.
- Samples were collected from equal number of healthy females to be for comparison of results.
- Prior to the surgery, levels of all the lipoprotein test related parameters were high in the obese people.
- After the surgery when these parameters were measured back, significant and positive changes were noticed.
- These increases include reductions in body mass index, levels of triglycerides, the LDL/HDL ratio, body fat mass.
Significance of the Research Study on Bariatric Surgery: An important observation of the study was that as the HDL levels improved, the body’s ability to keep the blood suar levels in check was also improved.
This developments further provide evidence to the idea that obesity (through lipid regulation) and type 2 diabetes (through glucose regulation) are closely related.
