Weight Loss Surgery Could Trigger Suicide And Self-Harm, Study

Research shows that post weight loss surgery could be dangerous. It boosts the person's chance of committing suicide or harming his own self, about two or three years after the operation, says Health Day.

Those who ailed from some mental illness or depression five years before the surgery are especially prone to it.

"While we are clear and confident about the medical benefits of weight loss, especially through weight-loss surgery, I think we're not as attentive to the potential psychological benefits or harms of it," Dr. Amir Ghaferi, director of bariatric surgery at the Ann Arbor Veterans Administration Healthcare System in Michigan, who was not involved with the study said, according to HNGN.

Scientists looked at 8,800 patients for three years before and after the operation. After the surgery, 111 of them committed 158 suicide attempts which went on to become emergency room cases.

Before the surgery, there was 93 percent who wanted to commit suicide, but had a mental disorder. Another 78 percent tried the suicide by overdosing on medications.

However, the authors said the study only looked at emergency room cases and said their results could be "underestimated".

These self-harming behaviors could be triggered by hormonal changes and lead to more stress and anxiety after the procedure.

Morever, it was worrying that bariatric surgery also changes the way in which alcohol gets broken down in the body, and makes a person ger drunk more quickly with less alcohol, making a person "throw away inhibitions against self-harming behaviour" faster.

Hence, post operation, there is "the need for screening for suicide risk during follow-up," say scientists.

"Bariatric surgery follow-up is notoriously poor," Ghaferi said. "We try to maintain at least one-year follow-up with our patients, but it's hard. Patients fall off the radar. They move, or it's the type of operation where if they're doing well or doing poorly, they're not going to come see you."

The Oct. 7 issue of the journal JAMA Surgery published the article.