Bariatric Surgery Center

Severe obesity affects millions of adolescents today. Interventions such as diet, exercise and pharmacologic treatment have limited effectiveness for many, causing them to turn to bariatric surgery for treatment. At Children's Hospital Colorado, we're dedicated to understanding the effectiveness of bariatric surgery and how it can benefit teens experiencing obesity and associated medical conditions.

In the following bariatric surgery videos, our experts discuss what they have learned about the efficacy of bariatric surgery for adolescents. This includes long-term studies, comparisons to adult outcomes and more.

PCORnet bariatric surgery research and outcomes

In the following bariatric surgery video, leading bariatric surgeon Thomas Inge, MD, shares insights from a large study to help educate providers everywhere on the surgery's potential benefits for adolescents.

Most bariatric surgery research studies have been small and limited in follow-up, usually detailing about one year of bariatric surgery outcomes. For the first time, researchers have studied bariatric surgery trends for operations performed in severely obese adolescents and weight loss outcomes at one, three and five years post-surgery.

In this bariatric medical education video, Dr. Inge discusses the research findings of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Network (PCORnet) Bariatric Study – the largest study of its kind.

Gastric bypass outcomes in adolescents compared to adults

Research has shown that bariatric surgery effectively reverses severe obesity in adults. However, until now, we haven't seen a well-designed, long-term, objective comparison of bariatric surgery outcomes in adolescents and adults. In the following video, Dr. Inge discusses a study he led on this topic — examining how outcomes for bariatric surgery differ for adolescent and adult patients up to five years after surgery.

Dr. Inge's team examined both populations five years post-surgery to understand sustained weight loss and the likelihood of reversing type 2 diabetes and other cardiovascular health issues. The study also tracked adverse outcomes, such as surgical complications and additional operations, in both age groups. Watch the video below to learn about these findings.

Study: Children with Type 2 Diabetes Benefitting from Bariatric Surgery

The number of youth with Type 2 diabetes is rapidly increasing in parallel with youth obesity. Youth with diabetes experience significant complications such as diabetic kidney disease (DKD) earlier than adults and at a higher rate than their peers with Type 1 diabetes. A study performed by Petter Bjornstad, MD, of our Department of Pediatric Endocrinology, and his team, has shown that bariatric surgery can greatly reduce the chances of a child with Type 2 diabetes developing DKD.

In this video, Thomas Inge, MD, our Chief of Pediatric Surgery and Director of Adolescent Bariatric Surgery, sits down with colleague, Dr. Bjornstad, to discuss the results of the study. Watch the video to learn about the methodology and outcomes of the study, which compared two groups of children with Type 2 diabetes over the course of five years.