The relationship between physical activity and food consumption pattern with cardiac morphological and functional indexes on people with morbid obesity after bariatric surgery

One of the main causes of death from cardiovascular diseases is obesity. Bariatric surgery is very common for the treatment of obesity. Therefore, the present study investigated the relationship between physical activity and selected food consumption patterns on the morphological and functional indicators of the heart in morbidly obese females after bariatric surgery.

 The present study was semi-experimental; So that the studied sample was 10 women with morbid obesity; who in 2021 intended to undergo bariatric surgery at Hafez Hospital and Shiraz Mother and Child Hospital. These people were included in the study in an accessible and purposeful way. Patients with mean ± standard deviation of age (34.58 ± 14.46 years), height (165.42 ± 9.876 cm), weight (pre-test: 112.58 ± 22.31 kg and post-test : 78.08±17.26 kg) and body mass index (pre-test: 40.9±5.59 and post-test: 28.47±5.44 kg/m2) were selected. Before and 12 weeks after bariatric surgery, some morphological and functional indicators of the heart were examined by echocardiography. The physical activity program based on the rules of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and the diet plan based on the textbook of the Bariatric Surgery Society (ASMBS) for a period of 12 weeks were provided to the patients by the surgeon. Considering the normality of the data through the Shapiro-Wilk test, to determine the difference between the two pre-test-post-test times, using the t-paired test and to determine the degree of correlation using the Pearson correlation test, and in the section of non-parametric statistics (qualitative data) using Wilcoxon test and Spearman's correlation test were used. The Shapiro-Wilk test was used to evaluate the normality of the data, and after examining the results of the said test, the distribution of the data was not normal. A significance level of p<0.05 was considered.

 Between physical activity and selected food consumption pattern with the variables of interventricular wall thickness (r=0.825, p<0.05), posterior heart wall thickness (r=0.704, p<0.05), dimensions of the left atrium of the heart ( A significant negative correlation was seen with the level of physical activity along with diet.  Also, there was a significant decrease in the thickness of the wall between the two ventricles, the thickness of the posterior wall of the heart, and the diastolic dysfunction of the left ventricle in the post-test compared to the pre-test, and no significant difference was observed in the rest of the research variables between these times.

 Bariatric surgery with modification of diet and moderate-intensity physical activity based on ACSM can have a positive effect on some morphological and functional variables of the heart  and protect people from cardiovascular risks caused by obesity.