Weight Loss Surgery May Increase Kidney Injury Risks: Study

Bariatric surgery rates have significantly declined in recent years due to concerns over potential health risks and the rise of weight loss treatments like Ozempic and Wegovy.

Patients who undergo weight loss surgery face a 73% higher risk of developing kidney stones, leading to the need for additional medical treatment and, in some cases, surgery, according to newly released data.

The findings, published in the medical journal BMC Nephrology on August 13, also revealed that while people who underwent different types of weight loss surgery face a greater risk of suffering acute kidney injuries (AKI), their overall long-term risk of kidney disease and kidney failure decreased.

Bariatric surgeries include weight loss procedures like Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy. Roux-en-Y is a procedure that divides the stomach and reroutes the small intestine to close off part of the stomach. Sleeve gastrectomy removes roughly 80% of the stomach, reducing the size so patients eat less.

Bariatric Surgery Risks

Prior research indicates patients who have gastric surgery lose more weight, but they also face a higher risk of complications and side effects. This includes increased chances of gastrointestinal complications, nutritional disorders, alcohol dependence and drug addiction.

Concerns over weight loss surgery risks, and the rise of easily-injectable weight loss alternatives, including glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists like Ozempic and Wegovy, have resulted in bariatric surgery rates dropping by 26% in recent years.

However, the use of GLP-1 drugs has come with its own set of concerns, including risks of stomach paralysis and vision loss risks, which has led to multiple Ozempic lawsuits, Wegovy lawsuits and Mounjaro lawsuits being filed against drug makers like Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly in recent years.

The new study, led by Dr. Christian Goul Sørensen from Aarhus University in Denmark, focused on kidney outcomes among bariatric surgery patients, using population-based registries including 18,827 patients who underwent Roux-en-Y gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy in Denmark from 2006 to 2018. They were compared to 94,135 matched patients who were hospital-diagnosed as overweight/obese but did not undergo bariatric surgery.

The data indicated patients who underwent bariatric surgery faced a 63% higher risk of suffering acute kidney injury by one year after surgery. After 10 years, they also had a 73% greater risk of developing kidney stones.

However, by 10 years after surgery the overall risk of suffering chronic kidney disease decreased by 59%, while the risk of kidney failure decreased by 37%.

“Collectively, these findings support the need to address and manage the initial post-operative risk of AKI and the long-term risk of nephrolithiasis in patients undergoing bariatric surgery.”

– Aarhus University researchers

Kidney stones develop as the result of mineral and salt deposits in urine. They can cause severe pain, as well as blood in urine, fever, chills and vomiting. While some stones can be destroyed using non-invasive sound waves, many require surgery to remove, leading to increased surgical complication risks.

GLP-1 Lawsuits

In addition to concerns about bariatric surgeries, more than 2,400 product liability lawsuits have been filed throughout the federal court system against certain drug makers over the past few years, indicating that manufacturers failed to provide adequate warnings about how GLP-1 weight loss and diabetes drugs, like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and others, could cause severe gastrointestinal problems, including gastroparesis, bowel obstructions and other painful side effects.

As many of these lawsuits raise similar factual and legal issues, all GLP-1 gastroparesis lawsuits have been consolidated in a multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where U.S. District Judge Karen Marston is overseeing coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings. As the litigation advances, the court is expected to select a small number of representative lawsuits for early bellwether trials, which are designed to gauge how juries may respond to evidence and testimony that will likely be repeated across the cases.

However, Judge Marston has instructed both plaintiffs and defendants to resolve several broad “cross-cutting” issues that affect the entire litigation before reaching that stage. Once those matters are addressed, preparation for the first bellwether cases will begin. While the outcomes will not automatically decide other GLP-1 drug lawsuits, the results are expected to heavily influence any potential settlements.

If no settlements are reached after the bellwethers, the remaining cases will return to their original courts for individual trials.

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