Stomach surgery benefits children; study finds obesity creates unhealthy fetal environment.

Children born to women who have achieved drastic weight loss through stomach surgery are healthier than kids born to severely obese morns, a new study shows. The findings suggest that obesity creates an unhealthy environment for a fetus that has ramifications later, scientists report in the November Journal of Clinical Endocrinology &. Metabolism.

"This is the first proof that exposure to obesity in utero is associated with long-term effects," says Dana Dabelea. a physician and epidemiologist at the University of Colorado Denver and the Colorado School of Public Health in Aurora.

Severely obese women should he encouraged to lose weight before pregnancy, says study coauthor John Kral of the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn.

Kral and his colleagues contacted 49 women who had given birth and had undergone biliopancreatic diversion bariatric surgery. On average, the women lost more than one-third of their body weight, going from severely obese to slightly overweight. The surgeries took place from 1984 to 2005. In that time, the women had a combined total of 111 children--54 before surgery and 57 afterward.

The researchers found that 19 children born before their morns underwent surgery were severely obese, compared with six children born after surgery. Blood tests revealed that those born after surgery had healthier levels of two hormones that regulate appetite. These children also used insulin more efficiently. Measurements of overall HDL cholesterol, the good kind, were higher in post-surgery children, and their total-cholesterol-to-HDL ratio was lower.

These scores reveal a person's risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke and other health risks, Kral says.