Text Weight Loss Surgery Bariatric surgery may be adopted to lose weight by limiting the amount of food consumed or the amount absorbed during digestion. A groundbreaking study suggests that bariatric surgery can significantly help shed excess pounds in severely obese adolescents. This treatment option supposedly enhances the quality of life.

During the investigation, authors looked for various databases that examined subjects less than 19 years of age reporting at least one postoperative weight loss measure and at least one year of postoperative follow-up. Then 37 relevant papers on bariatric surgery effectiveness in 831 children or adolescents were thoroughly scrutinized. Also 13 studies inspecting gastric banding, with mean BMI reductions ranging from 8.5 to 43 kg/m-2 were evaluated.

“The obesity epidemic now affects children as well as adults, with obesity and its associated morbidities and costs increasing in scale. Establishing effective methods for treating severe obesity in children will not only reduce the prevalence of childhood obesity and related ill health, but inhibit the progression of obese children to obese adults, a crucial step in combating the epidemic,” shared lead author Ange Aikenhead of the International Association for the Study of Obesity in London, England.

Weight gain was registered in three studies and three surgery-related mortalities appeared along with a range of postoperative complications across surgery types. Majority of the studies apparently found resolution or improvement of other conditions affecting the patients. It was concluded that subjecting older children to bariatric surgery can result in weight loss and improvements in co-morbidities as well as quality of life.

The study is published in the journal Clinical Obesity.