Effect of Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery on ventricular function and cardiac risk factors in obese patients: a systematic review

Weight gain and obesity are two important public health problems, which are associated with many diseases such as cardiovascular disorders. Various policies such as bariatric surgery have been proposed for the treatment of morbid obesity.
PubMed and Scopus were searched thoroughly with the following search terms (roux-en-y gastric bypass surgery) AND (ventricular function, OR cardiac risk factors OR heart)) AND (BMI OR body mass index) to find the articles in which the effect of roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) surgery had been evaluated in severely obese patients.
Out of 120 articles which were found in PubMed, and 28 records which were found in Scopus, only 18 articles fully met the inclusion criteria. Out of 2740 participants in the included studied, 1706 were patients with body mass index (BMI) over 40 kg/m2 who had undergone RYGB surgery, and 1034 were control participants. Results of the studies showed that RYGB surgery could reduce BMI, and cardiac risk factors, and improve diastolic function, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, and aortic function, postoperatively.
Obesity is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, impaired cardiac function, and hypertension. It is shown that RYGB surgery reduces the serum level of biochemical markers of cardiac diseases. Cardiac structure, parasympathetic indices of autonomic function, coronary circulatory function, hypertension, epicardial fat thickness, and ventricular performance improve after bariatric surgery.
It is concluded that RYGB surgery is an effective strategy to improve ventricular function and cardiac risk factors in morbid obese patients.