This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Weight loss reduces multimorbidity, improves health status for severely obese
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Adults with severe obesity are likely to have multiple morbidities, but they stand to reduce their number of chronic conditions and improve their health status by reducing their body weight by at least 5% during a 2-year period, according to research published in Obesity.
“We found a very high burden of multimorbidity in patients with severe obesity, and the severity of multimorbidity was associated with a reduction in health status in a direct and graded manner,” the researchers wrote. “We were also able to determine that clinically important weight loss was associated with a reduction in multimorbidity, and that multimorbidity reduction is associated with improvement in health status.”
Calypse B. Agborsangaya, of the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, and colleagues from other institutions analyzed data from 406 adults with BMI levels of 35 kg/m2 or more who participated in the Alberta Population-based Prospective Evaluation of the Quality of Life Outcomes and Economic Impact of Bariatric Surgery (APPLES) study.
The investigators calculated the prevalence of 20 chronic conditions, based on self-reports at baseline and 2 years, and fit multivariable logistic regression models to examine covariate-adjusted associations between a weight loss of at least 5% and decreases in multimorbidity, along with those between health status (visual analogue scale) and multimorbidity reduction.
At 2 years, the mean weight change was –12.9 ± 18.7 kg, and 53% of patients had lost at least 5% of baseline body weight. The mean change in health status measured by visual analogue scale was 11.5 ± 21.2, and 53.5% of patients demonstrated an increase of at least 10% on the scale. Multimorbidity was reported by 95.4% at baseline vs. 92.8% at 2 years.
“Over 2 years there was about an 8% reduction in number of chronic conditions across our study population,” the researchers wrote.
Losing at least 5% of body weight during a 2-year period was associated with reduced multimorbidity (adjusted OR = 1.7; 95% CI, 1.1-2.7); further reduced multimorbidity correlated with clinically important improvements (≥ 10% increase in visual analogue scale) in health status (adjusted OR = 2.5; 95% CI, 1.6-4).
“These findings increase overall understanding of multimorbidity in this patient population and reinforce the importance of weight reduction as one of the means to reduce the burden of multimorbidity and improve health status in these high-risk patients,” the researchers wrote. – by Allegra Tiver
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts