United States: Research appearing in Nature Medicine on January 27 demonstrates bariatric surgery effectively decreases liver disease complications when used on patients who have obesity combined with fatty liver disease. Study results demonstrated that weight-loss surgery procedure led to a 72% decline in serious liver-related disease complications among patients, as reported by HealthDay.
Surgery Reduces Risk of Advanced Liver Disease Progression
Results showed that bariatric surgery protected patients from reaching an advanced liver disease stage which could be fatal through an 80% reduction in progression. People who have fatty liver disease or metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) can derive strong advantages from weight-loss surgery since the condition mainly develops due to obesity and diabetes.
Weight Loss from Surgery Improves Liver Health
Dr. Steven Nissen, senior investigator and chief academic officer at Cleveland Clinic’s Heart, Vascular and Thoracic Institute, emphasized that lifestyle interventions like diet and exercise are currently the only recommended treatments for MASH-related cirrhosis. However, he noted that these changes alone rarely achieve the significant weight loss and metabolic improvements needed to reduce liver complications.
Bariatric Surgery vs. Lifestyle Intervention
The research examined obese and fatty liver disease patients who received weight-loss surgery against a non-surgical reference group of 106 participants and 62 surgical patients. Weight loss measurements revealed that patients who underwent bariatric surgery lost 27% of their body weight throughout 15 years but the control group lost only 10%. The individuals who underwent surgery developed serious liver complications at a 21% rate while the control group had a 46% rate of such complications. Surgical patients had a 16% rate of advanced liver disease development while the non-surgical population developed it at a rate of 31%.
Potential of Anti-Obesity Medications
Researchers suggest that new anti-obesity medications, like Wegovy and Zepbound, which result in average weight loss of 15% to 20%, could offer similar benefits in protecting against liver disease progression as bariatric surgery, as reported by HealthDay.
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