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For a lot of people weight loss surgery is very much a last resort and something to be avoided as long a possible while they explore all of their choices. Indeed, in most cases people are helped in this by their doctor who will insist on an extended program of diet and exercise before referring a patient for surgery. But is this the right approach?

Aside from the simple fact that almost everybody agrees that diet and exercise programs do not work and are a complete waste of time for the vast majority of people, there is very good evidence to show that delaying surgery is actually putting patients at risk.

In a recent study the records of over 2,000 patients who had weight loss surgery between 1995 and 2004 in the same medical center were examined. The researchers wished to see whether there were any factors which could have been used to predict the risks facing these patients before they had surgery and they found 5 things which they felt increased a patient’s risk from surgery.

The factor was gender with men being at greater risk than women. The second factor was having a body mass index of more than 50. The third was age with people under the age of 45 being at lower risk. The fourth factor was the presence of high blood pressure, frequently related to cardiovascular disease. The final factor was previous evidence of pulmonary embolus (a blood clot in the lungs) or a predisposition for this condition.

The team then awarded one point for the presence of each factor and split the study group into those at low, medium and high risk depending on their scores. The then looked at the death rates for these three groups and discovered that in the low risk group the death rate was 0.31%, in the medium risk group it was 1.9% and in the high risk group it was 7.56%.

Now there is not much you can do about your gender but, when it comes to the other factors, the effect as far as the risks of weight loss surgery are concerned are obvious. Ageing, continuing to gain weight and developing health problems all increase the risks for surgery. Thus, if you are morbidly obese, you should consider early surgery and balance the risks of waiting against the chances of finding a successful alternative.

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