Smoking in bariatric surgery On addictions, complications and weight loss

Smoking and severe obesity cause overlapping comorbidities and share some characteristics with addiction. Bariatric surgery is the most effective treatment for severe obesity in the long-term. This thesis focusses on smoking behaviour in the bariatric surgery population, and whether these behaviours were associated with bariatric surgery outcome, such as the occurrence of short and long-term complications, abdominal complaints and weight loss.
- It reports on patient beliefs about the possible health effects of smoking cessation, and whether there are differences in those beliefs between bariatric patients with different (self-reported) smoking behaviours.
- It reports on the validity of self-reported smoking by comparing self-reported smoking with a biomarker of smoking, during several phases of the trajectory, both before and after surgery.
- It explores whether smoking was associated with bariatric surgery outcomes, such as the occurrence of short and long-term complications, and weight loss.
- From the perspective of cross-addiction, this thesis describes whether other potential addictive behaviours—such as alcohol use and addictive drug use—were present in the phase before surgery and explores whether these behaviours were associated with complications and weight loss.
- Lastly, the final chapters of this thesis specifically focus on gastrointestinal complaints, abdominal complications and the association with smoking.