Boost this vitamin before bariatric surgery

Bariatric surgery is popular among some people who despite other weight loss efforts — and the dangerous threats obesity poses to their health — resort to surgery to slim up and get healthier.

It is no easy endeavor and not everyone is approved for the surgery. But for those who are, researchers have discovered an important factor in boosting recovery following surgery.

Low levels of vitamin D have long been identified as an unwanted hallmark of weight loss surgery, but now findings of a new Johns Hopkins study of more than 930,000 patient records add to evidence that seasonal sun exposure — a key factor in the body’s natural ability to make the “sunshine vitamin” — plays a substantial role in how well people do after such operations.

The healing potential of vitamin D

Results of the study, ^[1] published online in the journal Obesity Science & Practice, reveal that several factors including vitamin D status, seasons, and geography have a definite impact on surgery outcomes.

Specifically, the researchers found that patients undergoing bariatric surgery in the United States during winter — January to March, the time of lowest vitamin D levels — had a harder recovery than patients who had procedures in the summer. Similarly, patients having surgery in the north seemed to have more complications than those in the south.

“Sun exposure is critical in the synthesis of vitamin D, so the notion that people living in less sunny northern states may suffer from vitamin D deficiency is not surprising,” says Leigh Peterson, Ph.D., M.H.S., a nutritionist and postdoctoral research fellow at the Johns Hopkins Center for Bariatric Surgery, who led the research. “What is remarkable is how closely sun exposure, vitamin D and surgical outcomes were linked.”

For the study, researchers reviewed records of more than 930,000 bariatric operations performed in the United States between 2001 and 2010. Overall, they reported that post-procedural complications were rare, with fewer than one percent of patients developing infections. A more common outcome was spending a few extra days in the hospital, and this showed the strongest relationship with both season and geography.

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The researchers found, Peterson says, a disproportionate number of those who fared worse hailed from areas north of latitude 37 degrees — roughly South Carolina — than areas south of it. For example, areas north of latitude 37 degrees yielded almost 150,000 more patients with an extended length of stay — more than three days in the hospital — after surgery than areas south of that latitude. Considering that more than 300,000 of the operations, or over one-third of the total in the study, led to extended hospitalization, 71 percent of these surgical complications occurred north of 37 degrees.

Furthermore, the researchers noticed, adverse outcomes, such as nonhealing wounds, wound infections, wound separation and delayed wound healing, clustered in colder seasons marked by less sunshine. For example, more than twice as many patients experienced delayed wound-healing complications in the winter — 349 patients, or 0.16 percent of operations reviewed — than in the summer — 172 patients, or 0.07 percent of operations reviewed.

Despite geography there are good ways to boost your vitamin D. When choosing a supplement look for vitamin D3. Also mushrooms are a great source of vitamin D. If you want to boost the amount in mushrooms even more, you can dry them in the sun for mega benefits.

Other good food sources of vitamin D include:

• Wild-raised salmon and oily fish.
• Breakfast cereals.
• Enriched milk.
• Cod liver oil.

[1] Vitamin D Status Linked to Weight-Loss Surgery Outcomes