Weight-loss surgery not only helps obese people shed pounds and reverse diabetes, but it may also significantly reduce the risk of asthma attacks.
That’s the latest word from Massachusetts General Hospital researchers who found obese individuals with the lung disorder have fewer flare-ups after bariatric surgery.
The study, published online in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, is the first to find that significant weight reduction can reduce serious asthma-associated events and the latest example of health benefits from the procedure that extend beyond simply weight loss.
"We found that, in obese patients with asthma, the risk of emergency department visits and hospitalizations for asthma exacerbations decreased by half in the two years after bariatric surgery," said Kohei Hasegawa, M.D., with the MGH Department of Emergency Medicine.
"Although previous studies of non-surgical weight loss interventions failed to show consistent results regarding asthma risks, our result strongly suggests that the kind of significant weight loss that often results from bariatric surgery can reduce adverse asthma events."
For the study, the MGH researchers examined the medical records of 2,261 obese patients with asthma from California, Florida, and Nebraska, who underwent bariatric surgery from 2007 to 2009.
During the two years prior to surgery, 22 percent of the patients had at least one emergency department visit or hospitalization. But in the two years after surgery, only 11 percent needed a hospital visit.
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