Study Links Weight Loss Surgery with Depression and Self-Harm

Interestingly, around 147 attempts occurred five years before surgery among patients who had been diagnosed with mental health issues.

The study was published in the October. 7 online edition of the journal JAMA Surgery. Those in rural areas had a six times greater risk of receiving emergency care for self-inflicted harm after weight-loss operations, while the risk was more than doubled for low-income patients.

Legally to have suggests that is actually committing suicide and self-harm are significantly more commonplace following weight reduction surgery, which implies that patients should really be more closely controlled following this sort of surgery.

Here it must be mentioned that the new study by Dr. Bhatti is special as none of the previous studies followed patients for the period prior to the surgery to the period following the surgery.

An accompanying editorial noted the identification of patients with an increased risk of such adverse outcomes “remains an elusive goal”.

Bariatric surgery (weight loss surgery) includes a variety of procedures performed on people who have obesity.

They were assessed three years before and three years after surgery.

Bhatti stressed that although the magnitude of the increase in risk seen in the new study is large, the number of patients affected by this issue is still small – about 1 or 2 percent of the population, he said.

People who undergo bariatric surgery to help them lose weight may face an increased risk of self-harming behaviors in the two to three years following the surgery, a new study from Canada reports.

They advocate further investigation into the reasons for self-harm behaviors after bariatric surgery and ways to reduce these risks.

And as people become fatter, more opt to have weight loss surgery, which involves gastric band and gastric bypass operations.

“While we are clear and confident about the medical benefits of weight loss, especially through weight-loss surgery, I think we’re not as attentive to the potential psychological benefits or harms of it”, Dr. Amir Ghaferi, director of bariatric surgery at the Ann Arbor Veterans Administration Healthcare System in Michigan, told Health Day. That study shed light on the link between oversized people and depression.

However, the authors say that the success of the surgery can be compromised by mental health problems that are prevalent in morbidly obese and bariatric surgery patients, including substance misuse, depression and eating disorders.

He said that offering incentives to patients might push them to keep coming back for follow-up.

“Nearly all events occurred in patients who had a history of mental health disorder”, wrote the researchers from Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto.

For the goal of the study researchers categorised 4 distinct mechanisms of self-harm behaviors: medications, alcohol, poisoning by toxic chemicals, and physical trauma. Expert opinions now sets the standard for choosing which patients can safely get the surgery and how they should be prepared.

The researchers studied hospital records for 8,815 Ontario residents who had bariatric surgery between 2006 and 2011 for three years before and after the procedures. Bariatric surgery is also regarded as a safe procedure, with surgical mortality rates averaging less than one per cent.