This was a study published in Plastic Surgery News which came out in Fall 2016. It was done by CosmetAssure, which is an insurance company for plastic surgery complications. Clearly they want to figure out how to stratify risk for elective cosmetic surgeries. They start their article by speaking of the epidemic of obesity in the US,
- where they cite 69% of US adults have a BMI over 25, and 35% are over a BMI of 30.
- The group who does the most elective procedures, ages 35-50, has a BMI over 25 73% of the time.
- Obesity is associated with all sorts of medical issues: heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, and increased infections.
- Studies have been done on obese BMI>30, and morbidly obese BMI>40, but none on overweight BMI 25-30
- Prior studies have found a single institution study across all surgical specialties found obesity to be a risk factor for heart attack, wound infection, and urinary tract infections. Morbid obesity was a risk factor for death.
- Obesity has been associated with increased costs.
- 1.9 million cosmetic surgeries were done in 2015
- They analyzed 127,691 surgeries
- 36% had BMI over 25
- This is lower than the obesity in the general population
- Overweight patients were likely to be male (12.5%), diabetic (3.3%), have multiple procedures(41%), and have surgery in a hospital (31.%)
- Complication rates increased steadily with BMI-
- 1.4% BMI<18.5
- 1.6% BMI 8.5-25
- 2.3% BMI 25-29.9
- 3.1% BMI 30-39.9
- 4.2% BMI 40>
- There was twice the risk of infection, DVT, and pulmonary dysfunction
- Complications of tummy tuck (3.5%), liposuction (.9%), lower body lift (8.8%), or combined procedures (4.2%) were higher
- 36% had BMI over 25
Thoughts?
This is not news, though I appreciated them looking at the overweight BMI range of 25-30. Anytime you do multiple procedures, you are a smoker, or you are overweight, the risks of your surgery are higher. For many surgeries, we will not operate on smokers at all.
Bottom line is if you are thinking of doing a surgery, the better shape you can be in before surgery – and yes, your weight is part of that equation- the better surgery you will have. Better recovery, better tightening, lower risks.