Long-Term Cardiovascular Disease Outcomes Following Bariatric Surgery

Introduction: The long-term cardiovascular benefits of bariatric surgery remain unclear. We aimed to analyze the association between bariatric surgery and cardiovascular disease outcomes.

Methods: The Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission database (2015-2022) was queried for patients aged 15 to 84 y with obesity. Bariatric surgery patients were matched with nonsurgical patients using propensity score matching. Primary outcomes included all-cause mortality, new-onset heart failure (HF), myocardial infarction (MI), and ischemic stroke. A subgroup analysis of outcomes based on age, sex, diabetes, and smoking status was performed.

Results: A total of 222,700 patients met the inclusion criteria. 104,855 (47.09%) bariatric and 117,845 (52.90%) nonsurgical patients were analyzed. Bariatric surgery was associated with reduced risk of all-cause mortality 12.1 versus 15.7 per 1000 person-years (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.77, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.73-0.79, P < 0.001), HF (HR = 0.63, 95% CI = 0.69-0.67, P < 0.001), MI (HR = 0.69, 95% CI = 0.63-0.74, P < 0.001), and stroke (HR = 0.75, 95% CI = 0.69-0.80, P < 0.001). The association between bariatric surgery in the obese population and the improvement in cardiovascular outcomes was significantly pronounced in the pre-existing diabetes mellitus (DM) group compared to the non-DM group in terms of all-cause mortality, HF, and MI (adjusted HR = 0.59, 0.62, 0.59 respectively, P < 0.05). Bariatric surgery was also associated with a statistically significant reduction in all-cause mortality, MI, and stroke in smokers compared to nonsmokers (adjusted HR = 0.61, 0.59, 0.59 respectively, P < 0.05).

Conclusions: Our study demonstrates a statistically significant association between bariatric surgery and improvement in long-term cardiovascular outcomes and reduction in all-cause mortality in the obese population following bariatric surgery.