In the past 10 months, researchers have learned that obesity can increase the risk of Covid-19 and specifically, the risk of hospital and ICU admission, and mortality.

“We wanted to see if surgical weight lost can decrease that risk,” Dr. Ali Aminian, Director of the Bariatric and Metabolic Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, said in an interview with Dr. Neil Floch, Deputy Social Media Editor for Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases.

Among 4,000 patients who tested positive for Covid-19 from March to July, Dr. Aminian and fellow researchers identified patients who had a history of bariatric surgery and matched those patients to those with obesity to see if bariatric surgery could be protective.

In the surgical group, body mass decreased significantly, high blood pressure and diabetes improved and eventually, they found that the rate of hospital admission was 42% in controls with obesity compared to only 18% in patients who had bariatric surgery.

Thirteen percent of controls reported ICU admission and 6.7% required mechanical ventilation, but neither were reported from surgical patients.

“Bariatric surgery as we practice in the US is very effective and safe. It can improve blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, decrease the risk of cancer and based on the growing evidence, [weight loss] surgery can decrease the severity of Covid-19,” Aminian said.

Video Content: American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS)

Video Source: YouTube