I’ve lost a significant amount of weight. Should I undergo body contouring surgery?

When you are heavy, your skin stretches to accommodate the excess fat. When you lose the fat, many times the skin has lost elasticity and will not “snap back.” So yes, I recommend it.

But there is another benefit to body contouring surgery. Recently, Henry Ford Hospital has proven that patients who have body contouring surgery to reshape their bodies after bariatric surgery are more susceptible to greater weight loss than those who do not have body contouring surgery.

shutterstock_49547797The most recent study examined 94 patients who underwent bariatric surgery and were able to lose a tremendous amount of weight.  These patients went to Henry Ford from 2003 through 2013 for their surgery. Of the 94 patients, a total of 47 also had body-contouring procedures performed.

During this process, Henry Ford Researchers took measurements of the patients BMI (Body Mass Index) before the surgery and 2.5 years after. The BMI measurements were taken to help measure the patients stage of obesity prior to surgery and a couple years after surgery.

shutterstock_186677255Once the data was analyzed, the Henry Ford Researcher were astonished at their findings. Out of the 47 patients who had body contouring surgery, the  the average decrease in BMI was 18.24 at 2.5 years. When compared to the individuals who did not have body contouring surgery and only underwent bariatric surgery their BMI was at 12.45 at 2.5 years. This proved that body contouring surgery and bariatric surgery combined with the sample size of 47 patients decreased their BMI 5.79 points better than those who only had bariatric surgery .