Morbid obesity and gastric bypass surgery: biochemical profile

Morbid obesity (MO) and the pathologies associated with it constitute an important public health problem, accounting for 7% of the health expenditure in industrialized countries. An important percentage of this expense is attributed to the different biochemical tests performed in these patients, who suffer from several metabolic derangements. We evaluated the basic biochemical abnormalities in MO patients and their reversibility by weight loss after gastric bypass, to standardize the surveillance of the different metabolic abnormalities in obese patients.

By a retrospective analysis on 125 patients operated in our hospital, we evaluated anthropometric and biochemical data before and 1, 3, 6, 12 and 24 months after gastric bypass.

Preoperatively hyperinsulinemia, hyperglycemia, dyslipidemia and hypertensive disease were present, and began to improve 1 and 3 months after surgery (although not significantly) and significantly at 6, 12 and 24 months after it. We also observed deficient protein nutrition and a deficiency of micronutrients both before bypass and during the follow-up.

After gastric bypass, a marked decrease in insulin occurred, with normalization of blood pressure and the biochemical parameters associated with the metabolic syndrome. We propose a biochemical follow-up protocol for MO patients.