How Bariatric Surgery combats premature aging and adds eight years of life to patients

Weight loss through bariatric surgery can help you effectively combat premature aging and add about eight years of extra life, as per a recent study conducted in Vienna.

The researchers collected blood samples before surgery and one and two years afterwards.

They compared the levels of premature aging markers called Telomeres in the blood before and after surgery.

Telomeres are the internal clock of each cell. Telomeres get shorter when a cell divides or when oxidative stress causes them to break.

When the telomeres get very short the cell can no longer divide and is replenished or stays in the body as an aged cell.

Previous studies have shown that obese women had shorter telomeres compared to women with a healthy weight, which amounted to an added eight years of life.

Vienna study found that two years after surgery, patients had 80% longer telomeres than they had before the procedure and could reverse the premature aging in obese patients.

The study included 76 patients who were 40 years old on average; and the average BMI was 44.5 kg/m2. All patients had been unable to lose weight through lifestyle changes and were referred for bariatric surgery.

One year after surgery BMI had significantly dropped to an average of 27.5 kg/m2, which amounts to a 38% reduction.