Metabolic Surgery Is Associated with Lower Risk for Severe COVID-19

Rates of hospitalization and severe disease were 50% to 60% lower for surgical patients than controls.

The relation between obesity and severe COVID-19 now is well documented, but whether weight loss through metabolic surgery or other means is associated with lower COVID-19 risk is less clear. In this retrospective cohort study, researchers identified 20,000 patients with obesity (body-mass index, ≥35 kg/m²) at a single Cleveland institution from 2004 to 2017. About a quarter underwent metabolic surgery (i.e., Roux-en-Y gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy), and the remainder served as controls in propensity-matched analyses that were adjusted for a wide range of clinical and demographic variables.

During a median follow-up of 6 years, the surgical group lost about 19 percentage points more of their body weight than did the control group and …

Reviewing Author

Thomas L. Schwenk, MD

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Thomas L. Schwenk, MD

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Metabolic Surgery Is Associated with Lower Risk for Severe COVID-19

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