TOPLINE

In patients with severe obesity who underwent bariatric surgery, obesity-related comorbidities were highly prevalent, but postoperative weight loss (WL) was noted in more than 90%. The preoperative diagnosis of metabolic syndrome or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) was independently associated with a greater total WL at 1 year after surgery.

METHODOLOGY

• Researchers in Poland conducted a retrospective analysis to assess the prevalence of comorbidities in patients with severe obesity (BMI ≥ 40) who underwent bariatric surgery and the association of chronic diseases with the total WL at 1 year after surgery.
• They included 601 adult patients (mean age, 42 years; 67.05% women) who underwent bariatric surgery (laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass or laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy) between 2009 and 2021.
• The total WL was calculated as the difference between the initial body weight and body weight after 1 year and computed separately using maximum recorded body weight (%maxWL) and body weight at admission (%WL).
• Data on comorbidities including diabetes, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, heart failure, coronary artery disease, COPD, asthma, and others were extracted.

TAKEAWAY

• Only 13.3% of patients did not have any comorbidities. Overall, at 1-year follow-up, 91% of patients lost weight, 8.2% gained weight, and 0.8% had no change; among those who lost weight, mean %WL was 30.79% and mean %maxWL was 33.50%.
• Among all patients, hypertension was the most prevalent condition (71.2%), followed by metabolic syndrome (59.7%).
• After adjustment for confounders, the presence of metabolic syndrome was independently associated with greater %WL (beta-coefficient, 2.405; P = .033) and %maxWL (beta-coefficient, 2.389; P = .029) at 1 year following bariatric surgery.
• Similarly, COPD was independently linked to greater %WL (beta-coefficient, 6.522; P = .019) and %maxWL (beta-coefficient, 6.281; P = .019).

IN PRACTICE

"As the vast majority of patients undergoing bariatric surgery have at baseline other chronic diseases, the pre- and postoperative care should be multidisciplinary and take into account various therapeutic needs," the authors wrote.

SOURCE

This study was led by Urszula Stepaniak, Department of Epidemiology and Population Studies, Institute of Public Health, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Kraków, Poland. It was published online on July 18, 2026, in the Journal of Obesity.

LIMITATIONS

The study cohort may not have fully represented the entire population of patients undergoing bariatric surgery. Methods or diagnostic tests used to diagnose chronic diseases were not standardised as data were collected from medical records. Despite adjustment, the possibility of residual confounding could not be entirely ruled out.

DISCLOSURES

This study did not receive any specific funding. The authors declared having no conflicts of interest.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.