- Obese people are prematurely old with eroded cells and high inflammation
- But a University of Vienna study found gastric bypass can combat this
- Two years after weight loss surgery, study participants had longer cells
Mia De Graaf For Dailymail.com
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Weight loss surgery reverses the ageing process, new research suggests.
Obese people are prematurely old, with eroded cells and inflamed fat tissue.
But a study by the Medical University of Vienna found the damage can be reversed by bariatric surgery.
Gastric bypass operations are primarily used to help obese patients keep the pounds off.
According to lead author Dr Philipp Hohensinner, the benefits may be far greater than previously thought.
Benefits: Gastric bypass operations to help obese people lose weight could also reverse their cells’ ageing
‘Obesity, and specifically having a lot of fat tissue, seems to put the entire body under increased stress,’ Dr Hohensinner said.
‘By losing weight and therefore adipose tissue, that stress reduces, and the body becomes younger.
‘This is positive news for patients who have bariatric surgery because it shows that the damage from obesity can be reversed.’
In the study, Dr Hohensinner’s team analyzed 76 patients with an average age of 40, and a BMI of at least 35 kg/m2. The average BMI was 44.5 kg/m2.
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A BMI of more than 30 is deemed obese.
All of the patients had been referred for a gastric bypass having failed to lose weight using lifestyle changes.
Before going under the knife, patients gave blood samples to the researchers.
WHAT IS A GASTRIC BYPASS?
The operation divides the stomach into a small upper pouch and a much larger pouch.
This limits how much food a patient can eat.
The surgeon then rearranges the small intenstine to connect to the small pouches, acting as a bypass for food so it skips part of the patient’s digestive system.
It dramatically reduces how many calories the patient’s body can absorb.
According to Dr Hohensinner, patients typically lose around 30 to 40 per cent of their whole body weight in the first year.
Source: WebMD
Blood tests were then performed again two years later.
Beyond a significant drop in BMI – to an average of 27.5 kg/m2 – all patients showed decreased levels of inflammation in their cells two years later.
They also had longer telomeres.
Telomeres are the internal clock of each cell.
They get shorter with age, when a cell divides or oxidative stress causes them to break.
Research shows obesity and weight gain has the same effect, eroding the telomeres.
When they get very short the cell can no longer divide, so it simply sits in the body as an aged cell.
According to the study, telomere oxidation – which causes telomeres to break and shrink – had reduced three-fold two years after surgery.
This study is not the first to find that obese women have shorter telomeres than healthy weight women.
But it sheds new light on the idea that there is a way to reverse the ageing process.
Telomeres are the internal clock of each cell. They get shorter with age, when a cell divides or oxidative stress causes them to break. Research shows obesity and weight gain has the same effect, eroding the telomeres
‘Telomere length had increased two years after surgery in immune cells in the blood,’ said Dr Hohensinner.
‘These cells are replenished over time. It means that the cells we examined at two years were different cells in this new post-surgery environment.
‘They had longer telomeres and appeared younger than the cells we measured before surgery. The cells seem to have less stress and are less forced to proliferate.’
Reflecting on the research presented on Friday at Frontiers in CardioVascular Biology (FCVB) 2016, Dr Hohensinner said it is a good sign for the progress of weight loss research.
‘Surgery is the last resort for these patients and it is good to see that not only do they lose weight, but they also reduce the stress on their body and reduce the premature aging,’ he said.
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