High blood pressure, particularly when combined with obesity, is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide.
A recent study from Örebro University found metabolic surgeries are not only effective for treating Type 2 diabetes and obesity.
These surgeries also have benefits for people with obesity who have high blood pressure—and can reduce their risk of heart attack, stroke, and death.
Metabolic surgery, such as gastric bypass and gastric sleeve surgery, has been shown to reduce the risk for many conditions that typically accompany obesity, such as type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and sleep apnea, but it was unclear whether surgery is also effective for treating other chronic conditions.
In the study, the team aimed to evaluate whether metabolic surgery has benefits for patients with obesity and high blood pressure.
They compared two groups of people with these conditions: one that had undergone metabolic surgery, and a control group that hadn’t.
The team found the group that had undergone metabolic surgery had a lower risk of a “major adverse cardiovascular event” such as a stroke, heart attack, or cardiac arrest, and they had a lower risk of dying for any reason.
Overall, 3.2% of the group that had surgery experienced a stroke or heart attack, compared to 4.5% of the control group.
The findings suggest that metabolic surgery is effective at treating high blood pressure in people with a BMI of 35kg/m 2.
Metabolic surgery may not be a global solution to the obesity epidemic, but with these related conditions causing so much death and disease worldwide, surgeries should be considered an effective option for treating patients with obesity and high blood pressure.
If you care about blood pressure, please read studies that common snack may lead to high blood pressure, and vitamin D could improve blood pressure in people with diabetes.
For more information about blood pressure, please see recent studies that beetroot juice could help lower high blood pressure, and results showing how to cut heart attack risk by half in people with high blood pressure.
The research was published in PLOS Medicine and conducted by Erik Stenberg et al.
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