Bariatric surgery, one of several procedures performed on obese patients to produce rapid weight loss, does not provide the medical savings originally hoped for over the six years following the operation, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. This is disappointing given obesity-related conditions such as stroke, heart disease, arthritis and certain cancers cost Americans $190 billion a year; it also contradicts the results of earlier economic studies.
The study tracked 30,000 Americans who had undergone one of the two most widely used forms of bariatric surgery either rerouting the path of food or constricting the stomach and compared their health costs to similar obese patients who had not undergone the surgery. Expenses were found to be the same for the two groups up to six years following surgery, even when the cost of the surgery itself was subtracted.
A number of concerns have arisen regarding the study. Study leader Jonathan P. Weiner of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said that the researchers did not take into account whether some of the costs incurred by those patients who got the surgery were related to improvements in overall health. The patients who lost weight may have been better able to conceive and give birth, or receive a hip replacement, both risky if one is obese. Furthermore, Dr. Philip Schauer, a bariatric surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, believes that the study should have tracked patients for a longer period of time, at least 10 years. He points out that many of the cardiovascular benefits may not be evident until that point.
After considering this study, Kenneth Thorpe, chairman of health policy and management at Emory University's School of Public Health, believes that this further supports the idea that drug and behavioral therapies may be a better investment.
ACSH advisor Dr. Judith Stern comments, Patients were only followed for six years . Medical savings are unlikely to be seen in the time frame studied. I don't agree with the comment by...Kenneth Thorpe that drug and behavioral therapies are a better investment than surgery. It is too soon to tell.