A recent study suggests that weight loss surgery does not necessarily decrease the morbidity rate among morbidly obese middle-aged adults.

The United States researchers studied 850 male morbidly obese patients who went through weight loss surgeries or more commonly called as bariatric surgery between the years 2000 and 2006. The average age of these people is 49.5 and their average BMI is 54.7. A BMI or Body Mass Index more than 40 is already considered morbidly or severely obese.

The death rate of these people are compared to a group of males with an average age of 54.7 and an average BMI of 42 who did not undergo weight loss surgery. Eleven or 1.29 percent of those who underwent weight loss surgery died just within a month after their surgeries.

Matthew Maciejewski said that upon initial analysis they found out that the group who underwent weight loss surgeries has a lower death rate compared to the group that did not have surgery. After further analysis, however, the researchers realized that weight loss surgery does not have a direct effect on the death rate of morbidly obese patients.

The study was published online and will be published in print in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The researcher, however, emphasized that many morbidly obese patients still opt to go through weight loss surgeries even though it does not affect their survival rate because it can significantly decrease their weight.