Weight Loss Teen Gastric Bypass Can Increase Risk of Birth Defects

Weight Loss

Teen Gastric Bypass Can Increase Risk of Birth Defects

While the benefits of gastric bypass surgery are many—increased life expectancy, lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, reduction in cardiac disease—there is controversy when it comes to teenagers and this life-altering surgery. This type of surgery is being used more frequently on adolescents who are morbidly obese, but there are concerns about the effectiveness, safety, and long-term benefits in this age group.

Research has shown that gastric bypass can have an extreme effect, not only on weight, but on diabetes, reducing and even eliminating type 2 diabetes in a teenage study. A 2008 study “found that, in most cases, teens can lose one-third of their weight and come off diabetes medications with remission of their diabetes one year after bypass surgery. This is certainly not the case for similar diabetic teenage patients who did not undergo surgery.”

While the risk of death is low in adults, falling below 1 percent, there are other complications and resulting issues for teens considering this surgery, namely birth defects. The various surgical procedures used on the morbidly obese can reduce the absorption of critical vitamins and minerals, particularly folic acid. That reduction can lead to a higher risk of birthing babies with spine and brain birth defects, according to a new study. Folic acid is a key element in the prevention of spina bifida and other neural tube defects.

While vitamin and mineral supplements should be come a part of the daily, and lifetime, regimen of patients who have undergone, teenagers are notoriously neglectful when it comes to this necessary routine. In fact, some research shows that only 14 percent of teens adhere to their daily supplments.

Bruce Wolfe, surgeon and co-chair of the National Institutes of Health research consortium on bariatric surgery, said, “You can’t just write off these birth defects because they are rare. But there are adverse effects from the obesity as well. So the practical and ethical dilemma is at what point do you deny a tremendously beneficial procedure.”

Joan Han of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, suggest that weight-loss surgery should be considered with extreme caution and only in the most obese who had exhausted all other avenues.