Cardiovascular Risk Factors Following Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy in Black Americans Compared with White Americans

Bariatric surgery presents a long-term solution for clinical obesity. Given that Black Americans (BA) carry a greater burden of obesity-related comorbidities than White Americans (WA), understanding the racial disparities regarding remission of obesity comorbidities following the most common bariatric surgery, sleeve gastrectomy (SG). The goal of the current study was to provide quantitative values related to cardiovascular and lipid outcomes following SG and determine if racial disparities exist between BA and WA.

Data was collected from de-identified electronic medical records for patients receiving SG surgery at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, MS, USA.

Of 464 patients who obtained SG from (2013-2019), 64% were WA, and 36% were BA. Before surgery, BA had significantly greater body weight (BW), body mass index (BMI), and systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressures (BP) in comparison with WA. Compared with WA, BA were predicted to lose 5.1 kg less BW than WA at 1-year follow-up. Reduction in SBP (- 0.96 vs. - 0.60 mmHg/doubling of days) and DBP (- 0.51 vs. - 0.26 mmHg/doubling of days) was significantly higher in WA compared with BA. There was no racial difference in the change to total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol, or triglycerides by race. When normalized to weight loss, the racial disparity in BP reduction was mitigated.

These data indicate that BA lose less body weight following SG; however, loss of excess body weight loss is associated with improvement to BP similarly in both BA and WA.