New perspectives in bariatric-metabolic treatment
Authors: Fried Martin 
Published: January 2024

Summary: Obesity is a chronic disease that affects millions of people worldwide and is associated with many health complications. The main goal of obesity treatment is to improve health by achieving and maintaining weight loss or through imposing metabolic changes. For treatment, there are several interventions available, such as diet and exercise, drug therapy, surgical procedures. If used as MONO therapy, they often show insufficiency to achieve/maintain adequate weight loss and/or metabolic improvement in long term. Patients seeking low invasive, however still efficient treatment or those with insufficient treatment results or side effects may, under view of new developments both in pharma and surgery, benefit from combined approach of both, anti-obesity medications and very low invasive bariatric-metabolic surgery, such as gastric plication (namely endoscopic plication), partial jejuno-ileal diversion and left gastric artery embolization. There are several new anti-obesity drugs that have been developed or are in development. These drugs target different pathways in the body, such as hormones, neurotransmitters, receptors, enzymes, i.e. to reduce food intake, increase energy expenditure, alter nutrient absorption. In bariatric-metabolic surgery new understanding of the mechanisms of action, which involve not only mechanical restriction or malabsorption, but also neurohormonal modulation, gut microbiome alteration, immune system regulation, and epigenetic changes is being applied to the treatment pathways. For optimal success, heterogeneity of treatment response needs to be incorporated into management plans. Low invasive bariatric-metabolic surgery combined with pharmacotherapy can lead to additive weight-loss benefits and less side effects and it usually works in synergy with medications. Thus, combined approach to obesity treatment that involves anti-obesity medications and BMS are complementary to each other. Laparoscopic PJID seems to be one of the promising non-drug interventions, especially for type 2 diabetic patients with poorly controlled diabetes. Pilot results at two, five and seven years are presented in the article. In 5 years after PJID mean BMI decreased by –12.4%. Mean HbA1c decreased in 2 years after the operation by mean of –2.48 (–32.3%), after 5 years by –3,51 (–45.8%) and in 7 years still decrease of –2.39 (–31.2%) was noted. Glycaemia decreased by mean of –2.5 mmol/l in 2 years, in 5 years postoperatively mean decrease was –4.8 (–44.0%) a in 7 years the mean decrease was – 5.5 mmol/l (–50.4%) in comparison with the pre-op values. Partial jejunal diversion provides an anatomy sparing, low risk, potentially reversible, metabolic procedure, especially in a view of potential use of magnetic approach. The operation does not neccessitate significant alterations in lifestyle, mineral and/or vitamin supplementation and offers rapid recovery. Anti-obesity medications may help prepare patients for bariatric surgery by inducing preoperative weight loss and reducing surgical risk and/or through leveraging treatment outcomes if used in the immediate postoperative period. May also help to prevent or treat weight regain after bariatric surgery by enhancing satiety and reducing hunger. In non-responders to medication before they get surgery may trigger respond to the medication after surgery. New obesity treatment model that utilizes combination of new drugs and low invasive treatment (such as surgical, endoscopic and other new technologies, e.i.magnetic surgery), can enhance and leverage treatment outcomes without increasing risks. Key words: obesity – bariatric-metabolic surgery – pharmacotherapy – combined treatment