English Abstract
Abstract :
The prevalence of morbid obesity continues to increase and bariatric surgery has proven to be an effective intervention for significant weight loss and enhancing comorbidities related to obesity. However, this type of intervention may carry some negative side effects such as nutritional deficiencies and many other complaints. The current study investigated the prevalence of bariatric surgery in Bahrain with measuring the degree of weight loss, nutrient deficiencies and adherence to diet recommendations. A total of 396 patients were selected from two hospitals participated in this study, however, only 341 patients were eligible to be included. Medical records of patients included in the study were retrospectively reviewed and patients were asked to fill in a questionnaire through a phone interview. Results showed that at time of study, 47.5% were obese, 36.1% were overweight and only 16.4 % were normal and there was a significant effect related to the type of surgery (Pvalue < 0.05) and time since surgery (P value < 0.01) on patients post body mass index (BMI). Type of surgery had no significant effect on % excess weight loss (EWL) or % total weight loss (TWL), whereas time since surgery affected both %EWL and % TWL significantly with P values of 0.006 and 0.001 respectively.
Patient’s nutritional indicator status regardless the type or time of surgery showed that the majority of patients had normal levels of the reviewed nutritional indicators except for hemoglobin, hematocrit, mean corpuscular volume (MCV), 25 OH vitamin D, ferritin and iron. About half of patients were deficient in iron, MCV and hemoglobin with a frequency of 48.5 %, 47.1 % and 46.8 % respectively. For 25 OH vitamin D, 40 % had insufficient levels and 41.2 % were deficient, and that 38 % of patients were deficient in ferritin. The most common complaints that patients reported were: 59.5% hair loss, 39.3% flatulence, 34.3% dry skin, 33.2 gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD), 27.3% constipation, 26.9% low appetite and 26.7% anemia. There was a significant difference among surgery types for constipation, diarrhea, flatulence, anemia, hypoglycemia, Cholelithiasis and fatigue (P value ≤0.05). Patient’s adherence to dietary recommendations was high to moderate. In accordance, 49.6% of the patients were following with a dietitian whereas 59.1% attributed their non-following that it was not important to the fact that it was not important to do so. It can be concluded that although bariatric surgery is an effective intervention in obesity treatment and improve obesity-related co-morbidities, it carries some complications such as weight regain, nutrient deficiencies and other complaints. However, these complications could be controlled and managed through post-operative dietary and life style recommendation
