Obese Teens at Risk of Nutritional Deficiencies: New Study

Obese teens are at a risk of nutritional deficiencies, irrespective of whether they have or haven't undergone weight loss surgery, a new study reveals.

An increasing number of obese adolescents are undergoing the bariatric surgery. Though they manage to maintain the weight loss, they suffer from the lack of certain important nutrients. Researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center found that even five years after the weight loss surgery, teens and young adults are at risk of nutritional deficiencies mainly iron, anemia and vitamin D.

Researchers also found that severely obese teens that did not undergo weight loss surgery also had low levels of iron and vitamin D.  They also had low levels of proteins in their blood. This is one of the first studies to compare the nutritional status of severely obese teen that did not go under the knife to those who turned to weight loss surgeries.

"We knew there were nutritional difficulties in teens who had undergone bariatric surgery, but everyone thought it was primarily the surgery that caused these problems since gastric bypass excludes the portion of the small intestine where many nutrients, especially iron, are most absorbed," says Stavra Xanthakos, MD, medical director the Surgical Weight Loss Program for Teens at Cincinnati Children's and a co-author of the study.

The researchers suggest that health care providers should consider screening severely obese patients for nutritional deficiencies, regardless of whether they've undergone weight loss surgery.

For this study the researchers evaluated 79 obese teens that had either undergone weight loss surgery or not.  The patients were evaluated between 2001 and 2007 and participated in the study between 2011 and 2014.

Nearly 28 percent of the patients had witnessed significant weight loss even eight years (on average) after the surgery. 

The finding was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies.