Collaboration between basic science researchers and bariatric surgeons is a win/win proposition: view from the chair

Bariatric surgery in humans offers a window of opportunity to further our understanding of obesity and associated diseases. In the morbidly obese subjects, physiological disturbances are amplified and their extreme manifestations are more easily measured. The significant and predictable effects of bariatric surgery present a striking contrast to preoperative morbid conditions. The bariatric procedure is a reproducible therapy occurring at a precise time point; this facilitates the recording of preoperative and postoperative parameters over a short period of time, with some assurance that the contrasted conditions will confirm or disprove hypotheses with manageable numbers of subjects, thus providing an economy of means and efforts in a shorter time frame.