Surgical treatment and comorbidities

The surgical treatment of obesity, usually referred to as bariatric surgery, derived from the Greek word barrios for weight, originated in the 1950s. Today, this discipline is responsible for a major portion of the daily operating room schedules of most of the larger hospitals in the United States, both private and academic. Bariatric surgery is an example of metabolic surgery, which, together with extirpative and reparative surgery, represents the three principles of operative intervention. Metabolic surgery is defined as the manipulation of a normal organ or organ system to achieve a metabolic goal (1). More and more, the field of surgery has and is exploring metabolic surgical solutions for traditionally nonsurgical diseases, e.g., hyperlipidemia, diabetes, and obesity.