Effect of lipo-abdominoplasty on diabetes mellitus and hypertension in the morbidly obese: Case report and review of literature

Abstract

Background: Obesity has become a global problem. It is not just an issue of physical appearance, but a serious hazard to health. Dietary measures in persons who are greatly overweight can be succinctly summarized; they rarely work, with failure of medically supervised weight loss at 96-98%. Weight loss has been shown to reduce blood pressure in overweight hypertensive patients. Liposuction associated with amelioration of insulin resistance and reduced circulating markers of vascular inflammation may help obese subjects to reduce their cardiovascular risk. We intend to show our result of lipo-abdominoplasty in one patient.
Patient: He was a 40 year old male patient with BMI of 42kg/m² and history of steroid abuse, known diabetic and hypertensive. He suffered from sleep apnoea as a result of his weight. He had lipo-abdominoplasty using the Saldanha method.
Results: Two months after the procedure, symptoms of hypertension and diabetes mellitus resolved with blood pressure coming down to 120/90mm Hg and blood glucose normalising at 5.3mg/dl.
Conclusion: Though “cosmetic surgery is contraindicated in patients with BMI of more than 35kg/m² lipoabdominoplasty could be considered a therapeutic procedure. More work will be needed to clarify the modalities for this in the morbidly obese.

Keywords: Morbid obesity; lipo-abdominoplasty; diabetes; hypertension