People who had weight loss surgery reported greater alcohol use two years after their procedures than in the weeks beforehand, in a new study.
"This is perhaps a risk. I don't think it should deter people from having surgery, but you should be cautious to monitor (alcohol use) after surgery," Alexis Conason, who worked on the study at the New York Obesity Nutrition Research Center at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, told Reuters Health.
Researchers said it's possible some patients may turn to drinking if surgery successfully stops their ability to overeat without addressing their underlying issues. Or, the effects of certain types of stomach-shrinking procedures on alcohol tolerance may influence drinking habits.
Still, the new study can't show whether people were drinking in a dangerous way - and there was no clear increase in drug use or smoking after surgery.
"This does not mean that everyone who has gastric bypass surgery has problems with alcohol or becomes an alcoholic," said Conason.
Her team's study involved 155 people getting gastric bypass or gastric banding surgery, mostly women. Participants started the study with an average body mass index, or BMI, of 46 - equivalent to a five-foot, six-inch person who weighs 285 pounds.
Surgery is typically recommended for people with a BMI of at least 40, or at least 35 if they also have health problems such as diabetes or severe sleep apnea.
Alcohol use dropped immediately following surgery, from 61 percent of people who initially reported drinking to 20 percent at one month post-surgery.
But by three months, drinking rates had started to creep back up. And at two years out, people were drinking significantly more often than before their procedures, according to findings published Monday in the Archives of Surgery.
That was primarily the case for those who had gastric bypass surgery, not banding. On a scale from 0 to 10 of drinking frequency, where 0 represented never, 5 was sometimes and 10 always, gastric bypass patients reported an increase from 1.86 before surgery to 3.08 two years later.
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Weight loss surgery tied to increase in drinking
