UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers say losing pounds before weight-loss surgery can help reduce the time spent in the operating room.
Bariatric surgeons reviewed the records of 15 people who lost an average of about 8 percent of their body weight in the three months before gastric bypass surgery and 25 who did not.
“An 8-percent reduction of body weight was associated with a decrease in operative time, suggesting that weight loss prior to surgery results in a technically less challenging operation in the super-obese patient,” says Dr. Sergio Huerta, assistant professor of surgery who led the study appearing in Obesity Surgery. “However, weight loss prior to surgery did not affect the rate of postoperative complications, and both groups had the same long-term weight loss after two years.”
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