Variations in dietary intake after bypass surgery for obesity. Possible relation to development of fatty liver after jejunoileal bypass

Consumption of nutrients and food energy was compared, with concomitant chemical and radiologic measurements of hepatic fat content, preoperatively and postoperatively in 25 patients who underwent gastric or jejunoileal bypass for obesity. Patients in the two operative groups ingested similar quantities of food before surgery. After surgery, caloric intake from all sources decreased in both groups but to a significantly greater extent in the gastric bypass patients. During the first six months postoperatively, the 13 gastric bypass patients showed no changes in hepatic fat content, whereas substantial increases in liver fat uniformly occurred in the 12 patients who had jejunoileal bypasses. It is suggested that dietary carbohydrate may have contributed to the accretion of liver fat in these 12 patients.