FROM THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF CARDIOLOGY
Bariatric surgery can reduce the risk of long-term cardiovascular outcomes in older Medicare beneficiaries with obesity, a large new observational study in which a third of the patients were over age 65 years suggests.
Overall, patients who underwent bariatric surgery had 37% lower all-cause mortality and were significantly less likely to have admissions for new-onset heart failure (64% risk reduction), myocardial infarction (37% risk reduction), and ischemic stroke (29% risk reduction), compared with similar patients who received more conservative treatment, after a median of 4 years of follow-up, report Amgad Mentias, MD, MS, a clinical cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Ohio, and colleagues.
The results were published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.