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Chubby sufferers ready for operations might safely use a selected sort of weight-loss therapy to scale back the chance of surgical issues linked to their weight problems, a brand new examine reveals.
The examine highlights glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) as a promising medicine given earlier than surgical procedure that helps management blood sugar and helps weight reduction—probably bettering surgical outcomes and lowering well being care burdens related to weight problems.
Nevertheless, the researchers stress an pressing want for high-quality randomized trials to validate these findings, assess cost-effectiveness, and information implementation of the drug throughout various surgical methods.
Publishing their findings in eClinicalMedicine, the specialists reveal that GLP-1 remedy led to weight reductions of as much as 16.7 kg over six months, suggesting its potential as a scalable preoperative measure.
They analyzed knowledge from 21 research encompassing over 97,000 surgical sufferers, 31.9% of whom obtained preoperative GLP-1 remedy—discovering that, throughout 12 research reporting postoperative outcomes, use of the medicine was not related to elevated threat.
Lead creator Dr. Sivesh Kamarajah, from the College of Birmingham, commented, “People who find themselves overweight face greater dangers throughout surgical procedures, so measures that assist to scale back their weight forward of surgical procedure will help to enhance their probabilities of avoiding post-operative issues.
“Our findings problem present pointers across the potential security dangers of sufferers on GLP-1 present process surgical procedure—this steering is predicated on opinions fairly than high-quality proof.
“GLP-1 therapies could supply a transformative method to surgical optimization, however sturdy proof is required to tell scientific pointers and well being coverage. Given the dimensions of the weight problems epidemic and surgical demand, prioritizing analysis on this space is essential.
GLP-1 RAs had been initially developed for sort 2 diabetes administration however have emerged as a robust agent for weight reduction. Nevertheless, their perioperative security has remained unsure, significantly amid considerations about delayed gastric emptying and aspiration threat.
Weight problems stays a significant world public well being problem, significantly amongst surgical sufferers, the place it may be related to elevated threat across the operation and into the long run. Whereas preoperative weight administration methods are sometimes used to mitigate these dangers, scalable interventions stay restricted.
The danger of surgical procedure in people who find themselves overweight are as excessive however varies in keeping with surgical specialty. Round a 3rd of sufferers who’re overweight bear surgical procedure—most of those procedures, equivalent to these for most cancers, are time-critical.
“We are not seeing GLP-1 as a routine intervention for weight loss in clinical practice because the clinical- and cost-effectiveness of wider use remains uncertain—further highlighting the need for a trial,” added Dr. Kamarajah.
Extra info:
Analysis of security of preoperative GLP-1 receptor agonists in sufferers present process elective surgical procedure: a scientific assessment, meta-analysis and meta-regression, eClinicalMedicine (2025).
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College of Birmingham
Quotation:
Overweight surgical sufferers can safely use GLP-1 remedy to scale back threat of issues, examine concludes (2025, August 12)
retrieved 12 August 2025
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