Metabolomics and Bariatric Surgery in Patients With Metabolically Unhealthy Obesity: Advancing Precision Medicine for the Treatment of Obesity

This is a prospective observational study conducted at the bariatric surgery unit. Patients undergo routine assessments and preoperative evaluations by a multidisciplinary team including surgeons, endocrinologists, nutritionists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and anesthesiologists. Clinical evaluations include physical examinations and laboratory tests to detect cardiometabolic comorbidities before surgery. The two bariatric surgery techniques performed in this center are gastric bypass and vertical gastrectomy. The choice of technique is based on clinical criteria and consensus of the multidisciplinary team. After surgery, patients are evaluated at 3, 6, and 12 months through anthropometry, blood pressure measurements, smoking habits assessment, and routine blood analysis. Patients are invited to participate in the OBEMAR registry during the preoperative period. With informed consent, patients authorize the collection of serum and plasma samples at each visit for scientific purposes. Participation in the study does not entail additional visits or procedures beyond standard clinical practice and participation in the OBEMAR registry.

Metabolically Health Status Criteria:

Health status will be defined according to the criteria used by Wildman et al. in the NHANES 1999-2004 study, excluding C-reactive protein measurement. Patients will be classified as metabolically healthy obese (OMS) if they have only one or none of the cardiometabolic factors. Patients with two or more risk factors will be categorized as metabolically unhealthy obese (OME). This classification will be performed before and one year after surgery.

Metabolomics The study will analyze various metabolites related to amino acid metabolism, energy metabolism, and lipid profile. These metabolites will provide insights into metabolic changes before and after bariatric surgery. Specifically, the study will focus on branched-chain amino acids (BCAA), aromatic amino acids (AAA), energy metabolites, and lipid species.

Sample size and origin To ensure statistical power, a sample size calculation was performed based on the anticipated distribution of patients transitioning to metabolically healthy obesity (OMS) or maintaining metabolically unhealthy obesity (OME) status after surgery. It is estimated that 84.4% of patients will transition to OMS, while the remaining 15.6% will remain OME after surgery. Accepting an alpha risk of 0.05 and a beta risk of 0.2 in a two-tailed test, a minimum of 19 subjects in the OME group and 102 in the OMS group are required to detect a difference of 25% or more in the selected metabolites. Assuming a common standard deviation of 35% for these metabolites, a total of 145 patients need to be included to ensure that 121 meet OME criteria before surgery.