Does bariatric surgery have long-lasting benefits?

A study published Sept. 21, 2017, in The New England Journal of Medicine provides some answers. Researchers in the United States and Norway followed three groups of severely obese people for 12 years: 418 who sought and underwent the surgery, 417 who sought the surgery but didn't have it (primarily because their insurance wouldn't pay for it), and 321 whose obesity made them candidates for the surgery but who did not want it. The average weight for the people in the three groups at the beginning of the study was about the same: 273 to 295 pounds. After 12 years, on average, the people who had surgery weighed 99 pounds less, those who sought but did not get surgery weighed 6 pounds less, and those who didn't want surgery had no change in weight.