Ask any formerly morbidly obese person what his or her life would have been like without weight loss surgery, and they would probably tell you “shorter.”

Weight loss surgeons, and many patients, have long suspected that weight loss surgery prolongs the life of morbidly obese patients by reducing the chance of an early, obesity-related death.

Now there’s significant data to reinforce this belief. Two major studies have revealed that weight loss surgery reduces a patient’s risk for early death.

• The first weight-loss surgery study (conducted in the U.S.) involved more than 15,000 obese people. In this group, the long-term mortality rate dropped by 40% for those who underwent a gastric bypass surgery (as compared to those who did not). The American study followed individuals with a body mass index (BMI) of 33 or higher over a period of 7 years.
• The second weight-loss surgery study (conducted in Sweden) involved more than 4,000 obese people. The Swedish study determined that the obese people who underwent gastric bypass or Lap-Band surgeries had a death rate 29% lower than the obese people who did not have such surgery. The Swedish study followed individuals with a BMI of 34 or higher over a period of 11 years.

Both of these weight-loss surgery studies have been published in the August 23 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.