Thirty years ago, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) convened a Consensus Development Conference that pub- lished a Statement on gastrointestinal surgery for severe obesity, reflecting expert assessment of the medical knowledge available at the time. Specifically, it sought to address “the surgical treatments for severe obesity and the criteria for selection, the efficacy and risks of surgical treatments for severe obesity, and the need for future research on and epidemiological evaluation of these therapies,” and included specific recommendations for practice.
In light of significant advances in the understanding of the disease of obesity, its management in general, and metabolic and bariatric surgery specifically, the leaderships of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) and the International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity and Metabolic Disorders (IFSO) have convened to produce this joint statement on the current available scientific information on metabolic and bariatric surgery and its indications.