EDC Faculty Wendy King and Steve Belle find that 1 in 5 Surgical Weight-loss Patients Take Prescription Opioids Seven Years After Surgery

Wendy King and Steve Belle, along with co-authors, have published a paper showing that while the proportion of adults with severe obesity using prescription opioids initially declines in the months after bariatric surgery, it increases within a matter of years, eventually surpassing pre-surgery rates of patients using the potentially addictive pain medications.

The findings—which come from one of the largest, longest-running studies of adults who underwent weight-loss surgery—indicate that improvements in obesity-related pain gained through bariatric surgery are not sufficient to counter the need for pain relief in the years following the procedure. Results are reported in Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases, the journal of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.

The full press release can be found here:
www.upmc.com/media/NewsReleases/2017/Pages/opioid-weight-loss.aspx