Nearly one in five severely obese Canadians die in hospital after an emergency surgery: study
Nearly one in five severely obese Canadians who require emergency surgery will not survive to be discharged home, new research into the latest fallout of the country’s weight problem suggests.
University of Alberta researchers who looked at obese patients undergoing common but urgent operations such as appendectomies, gallbladder surgery, abdominal surgery or hernia repair found nearly half needed to be admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU), one-third required multiple surgeries and 17 per cent died in hospital.
The heaviest patients had the highest complication rates.
Obese people tend to have underlying health problems such as high blood pressure that increase their risks of blood clots and other post-surgery complications.
But their worse outcomes might also partly be explained by a paradox: many obese people are actually malnourished. Their diets tend to be high in calories but deficient in essential vitamins and minerals critical for recovery from illness or surgery. Malnourished patients have slower healing times, the authors note, and “a diminished ability to heal may explain the substantial need for ICU support, reoperation and the high mortality observed in our study.”
The results show hospitals need be better prepared to deal with the increasing number of Canadians living with severe obesity, experts say.
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