Abstract

Background: Bariatric surgery focuses on patients with diverse health complications, varying onset of obesity and total duration of obesity. Sri Lanka characterizes an escalation of morbid obesity which had transformed into a significant public health concern. Therefore, objective of this study is to explore the metabolic parameters and health complication relationships of between early onset and adult onset patients with obesity.

Objective: It has been shown that bariatric surgery is a better candidate for weight reduction for morbidly obese patients worldwide. Our goal is to investigate whether the similar principal would work out for bariatric surgery on morbidly obese patients in Sri Lanka.

Methods: A total of 110 unrelated patients from Colombo south teaching hospital, Sri Lanka were included into this study. The body fat parameters were measured to analyze percentage rate of weight loss and Body Mass Index (BMI) of patients prior to bariatric surgery and 9 months post operational. Patients were categorized into early onset obese (<18 years of age) and adult onset obese (>18 years of age).

Results: Adult onset patients with obesity had a higher body weight and body mass index compared to early onset patients with obesity. Post-operational 9 months records indicate mean weight and BMI of early onset patients with obesity reduced by 33.03 kg and 12.88 kgm^-2 (p<0.001) respectively. Similarly, adult onset obese patients reduced weight and BMI by 27.63 kg and 11.34 kgm^-2 (p<0.001) respectively.

Conclusion: Rate of reduction of mean weight and BMI of early onset patients with obesity were comparatively higher than the adult onset patients with obesity.

Keywords: Bariatric surgery; Early onset obesity; Adult onset obesity; Body weight; BMI