Gastric Bypass is Better than Other Procedures for Sustainable Weight Loss

Contact: Amara Omeokwe Phone: [phone] Email:[e-mail]://www.dukehealth.orgEMBARGOED FOR RELEASE until 11 a.m. (ET) on Wednesday, August 31, 2016DURHAM, N.C. --  Gastric bypass surgery is more effective for weight loss and long-term weight maintenance than are other surgical procedures and non-surgical treatment, according to a study led by researchers at Duke Health and the Durham VA Medical Center.The study ’s findings, published Aug. 31 in the journal JAMA Surgery, are based on the analysis of ten years of medical records for veterans who underwent one of three different weight-loss surgery procedures at VA medical centers or community hospitals reimbursed by the VA.“Very few studies have shown how weight-loss surgery patients change over the long term, which we consider a period of five years or more,” said lead authorMatthew Maciejewski, Ph.D, a professor of medicine at Duke and director of the Health Economics and Policy Unit at the Durham VA Medical Center.“We also wanted to contribute to filling the evidence gap about the comparative outcomes of the different forms of weight-loss surgery,” Maciejewski said.In the study ’s first part, Maciejewski and co-investigators compared the records of 1,787 veterans who underwent gastric bypass to the records of 5,305 veterans who did not have any form of weight loss surgery. These non-surgical patients were included in the study based on several criteria -- including age, sex, race, chronic con...

Source: DukeHealth.org: Duke Health Features - September 1, 2016 Category: Pediatrics Tags: Duke Medicine Source Type: news