Obese people may not be 'depression free' post weight-loss surgery

A new has found that not every obese person is free form depression after a bariatric surgery.

Valentina Ivezaj and Carlos Grilo said that the belief that most severely obese people experience much better spirits once they shed weight through a diet, lifestyle changes or medical intervention, didn't hold true for everyone.

The researchers set out to investigate how prone bariatric patients were to still experiencing depressive symptoms, and especially if such symptoms increased markedly or not at all, after post-surgery. Their study was the first to examine patients with discernible worsening depressive symptoms six and 12 months following gastric bypass surgery.

Self-reported questionnaires were completed by 107 patients with extreme obesity before they underwent gastric bypass surgery, and then again six and 12 months after the procedure. They were asked to reflect on their levels of depression, possible eating disorders, their self-esteem and general social functioning. Of the 107 participants, 94 were women and 13 were men, 73 were white and 24 had completed college.

Ivezaj and Grilo observed that most people who had undergone this procedure were in much better spirits and reported experiencing a normal and improved mood at six and 12 months after surgery. However, in some cases negative mood changes started to creep in between six and 12 months after the operation, with 3.7 percent of patients reporting that they felt discernibly more depressed 12 months post-surgery. Between six and 12 months after the operation, however, even more patients (13.1 percent) reported increases in depressive symptoms. These changes went hand-in-hand with significantly lower levels of self-esteem and social functioning.

The study is published in Springer's journal Obesity Surgery.