Weight Gain Occurs after Tonsils Removal and not Linked to Obesity in Children

A recent study states that tonsils removal is related to weight gain in children but it does not necessarily lead to obesity later.

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine, California say that weight gain in children after adenotonsillectomy (removal of tonsils) is seen mostly in small and younger children and it is not linked to obesity later.

According to the study details, there are over 500,000 children in the U.S. that have their tonsils removed each year. The childhood obesity rate triggered a need to reconsider the issue of weight gain after the removal of tonsils.

The researchers focused on a study that included over 815 patients of ages 18 and younger who had their tonsils removed between 2007 and 2013.

The greatest increase in weight gain was seen among children who were smaller and younger than 4 years at the time of removal of tonsils. The least weight gain was among children above 8.

Children who were heavier (above 80 percentile in weight) before the surgery, did not gain any  weight.  But 18 months after the surgery, the weight percentile in the study population soared by an average of 6.3  points.  Even the BMI percentiles increased by an average 8 percentile points. Larger increase in BMI percentile was seen in smaller children and not in larger children.

"Despite the finding that many children gain weight and have higher BMIs after tonsillectomy, in our study, the proportion of children who were obese (BMI >95th percentile) before surgery (14.5 percent) remained statistically unchanged after surgery (16.3 percent). On the basis of this work, adenotonsillectomy does not correlate with increased rates of childhood obesity."

The reason behind weight gain is unclear, but a previous study from St. Louis University hypothesizes that improved health may be a factor. Many children in need of a tonsillectomy suffer from frequent illnesses or sleep apnea, a condition in which breathing is repeatedly interrupted during sleep. Tonsillectomy removes the cause of these health problems, and as a result appetite increases, according to LiveScience.

The study was documented in JAMA Otolaryngol Head Neck Surgery.