The big article in today’s New England Journal is on weight loss surgery. It saves lives. In fact, the benefit is quite dramatic.
The authors studied 9,949 patients who had undergone weight loss surgery, and compared them to a control group of 9,628 severely obese individuals who did not have the surgery.
The findings:
- Overall mortality decreased by 40% in the patients who had surgery.
- There were 56% fewer deaths due to coronary disease,
- 96% fewer deaths due to diabetes
- and 60% fewer deaths due to cancer.