Obese teens face potentially devastating effects of hypertension, aggressive type 2 diabetes, and bone and joint problems. Historically, we have not considered gastric bypass surgery even though it offers perhaps the greatest chance for long-term weight reduction. But if teens are having adult-sized complications, shouldn't we be performing an adult-sized intervention?[1]
The Teen–Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery (Teen-LABS) study was a prospective, multicenter, observational study that examined outcomes of Roux-en-Y surgery in teens compared with those of a similarly treated group of adults.[2] The goal was to determine whether the secondary complications of obesity would be more likely to improve if the surgery happened during adolescence.
All of the 161 teenagers were evaluated extensively at baseline and seen multiple times over the next 5 years. The 396 adults in the comparison group were between the ages of 25 and 50 years at the time of their gastric bypass surgeries but had developed obesity at age 18 or earlier.
Over 80% of the participants remained active in the study throughout the 5 years. The mean BMI for the adolescent patients at baseline was 53.7 compared with 50.6 for the adults (P < .001). The mean weight loss in the teens was 57 lb compared with 64 lb for the adults, a difference that was not significant. Five years after surgery, 60% of the adolescents and 76% of the adults maintained weight reduction of ≥ 20%, a difference that was statistically significant.
