MEDICAL doctors are divided over a recent study, which suggests that slim patients have higher risk of dying after surgery compared to their overweight counterparts.
A study published in this month’s issue of the journal Archives of Surgery suggests that while being trim is generally good for health, it may actually raise the risk of death after surgery.
The researchers said slender people with a body mass index (BMI) of 23 or less were 40 per cent are more likely to die within a month of a surgical procedure, compared with those overweight, with a BMI between 26 and 29.
BMI is a measurement of body fat based on height and weight that applies to both men and women between the ages of 18 and 65 years. BMI is a measure of weight in kilogrammes divided by height in metres squared. That is a person who weighs 100 kg and is 1.88 metres tall has a BMI of 28.29. Healthy or ideal BMI is between 20 and 25, while overweight is between 25 and 30, and above 30 is obese.
The results held even after the researchers took into account the condition the patient had that required surgery, and the risk of death associated with that surgery.
But a consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at National Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, Lagos, Dr. Adedamola Dada, said the claim was in exact opposite to what is known to conventional knowledge about BMI and surgeries.
Dada said studies were simply findings by a group of workers and far more may need to be done before a consensus can be reached on any finding.
“I do not have details of this study particularly the methods and design… I think we all need to keep a close watch on this but I will like to inform you that a vast list of such findings never becomes conventional knowledge. Many findings collapse under intense scientific scrutiny,” he said.
An adjunct professor of medicine at University of Illinois Chicago, United States (U.S.), Prof. Oladapo Ashiru, dismissed the finding for not giving the condition of the slim patients that required surgery.
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