Nutritional Status of Bariatric Surgery Candidates

Abstract

Obesity is a global epidemic affecting populations globally. Bariatric surgery is an effective treatment for morbid obesity, and has increased dramatically. Bariatric surgery candidates frequently have pre-existing nutritional deficiencies that might exacerbate post-surgery. To provide better health care management pre- and post-bariatric surgery, it is imperative to establish the nutritional status of prospective patients before surgery. The aim of this study was to assess and provide baseline data on the nutritional status of bariatric candidates. A retrospective study was conducted on obese patients who underwent bariatric surgery from 2008 to 2015. The medical records of 1538 patients were reviewed for this study. Pre-operatively, the most commonly observed vitamin deficiencies were Vitamin D (76%) and Vitamin B12 (16%). Anemia and iron status parameters were low in a considerable number of patients before surgery, as follows: hemoglobin 20%, mean corpuscular volume (MCV) 48%, ferritin 28%, serum iron 51%, and transferrin saturation 60%. Albumin and transferrin were found to be low in 10% and 9% of the patients, respectively, prior to surgery. In addition to deficiencies, a great number of patients had hypervitaminosis pre-operatively. Excess levels of Vitamin B6 (24%) was the most remarkable. The findings in this study advocate a close monitoring and tailored supplementation pre- and post-bariatric surgery.

Effect of Bariatric Surgery on Weight Loss, Nutritional Deficiencies, Postoperative Complications and Adherence to Dietary and Lifestyle Recommendations: A retrospective cohort study from Bahrain

“…10 While studies have shown that nutritional deficiencies are usually prevalent beforehand in obese patients, bariatric surgery may exacerbate the problem and/or introduce new deficiencies. 15,23,24 According to a biochemical assessment of various nutritional parameters, approximately half of the patients in the current study were deficient in iron, haemoglobin and MCV, all of which are indicators of anaemia. A recent review article reported iron deficiency to be the most common nutritional deficiency following bariatric surgery.…”

“…Nutritional deficiencies were identified by reviewing and comparing various nutritional parameters with normal reference ranges of calcium, 25-hydroxy (OH) vitamin D, vitamin B12, iron, ferritin, haemoglobin, haematocrit, mean corpuscular volume (MCV), cholesterol, sodium, potassium and magnesium. 15 A questionnaire was developed in both Arabic and English to collect data from the participants. The questionnaire was divided into three parts, in which the first assessed demographic data and the second investigated if the participant was currently experiencing any complications which had appeared postoperatively (i.e.…”

Bariatric Surgery in Obesity: Effects on Gut Microbiota and Micronutrient Status

“…As previously shown, between GM and micronutrients there is a double sense relationship: GM produces micronutrients, whereas micronutrients are needed for bacterial survival. Severely obese patients present various micronutrient deficiencies before undergoing BS [39][40][41][42]. The impaired nutritional status documented among the BS candidates is considered to be related to poor-quality food choices that provide insufficient amounts of vitamins and minerals in spite of a higher total caloric intake [42].…”

“…Several studies have observed the micronutrient deficiencies among BS candidates and reported that these patients displayed at least one vitamin or mineral baseline deficit [40,41,[49][50][51]. Table 1 presents the most common nutritional deficiencies and their prevalence documented in patients evaluated before BS.…”

Bariatric surgery patient: is the patient a well-understood universe?

“…Ensuring the patient's commitment to face the different stages of the treatment, would give more chances to obtain better clinical outcomes and avoid medical failures that have high monetary costs for the insurance companies and negative impact in patients. 1,4 We invite bariatric groups all over the world, to not underestimate patients and see them as an organic and mental human being.…”