The effect of liposuction versus liposuction with abdominoplasty on insulin resistance in normoglycemic non-obese Mexican females: A prospective cohort study.

Introduction: Several studies have evaluated the effect of liposuction or abdominoplasty on metabolic health, including insulin resistance, with mixed results. Many overweight patients, with no marked obesity, are recommended to undergo liposuction combined with abdominoplasty, but no study has evaluated the effectiveness of combining the two procedures on metabolic health.

Methods: The present prospective cohort study compares the metabolic parameters of 2 groups of normoglycemic Hispanic women without obesity. The first group underwent liposuction only (LIPO), while the second group had combined liposuction and abdominoplasty (LIPO + ABDO).

Results: A total of 31 patients were evaluated, including 13 in the LIPO group and 18 in the LIPO + ABDO group. The 2 groups had similar HOMA-IR before surgery (P > 0.72). When tested 60 days after surgery, women in the LIPO group had similar HOMA-IR compared to their preoperative levels (2.98 ± 0.4 vs 2.70 ± 0.3; P > .20). However, the LIPO+ABDO group showed significantly reduced HOMA-IR values compared to their preoperative levels (2.37 ± 0.2 vs 1.73 ± 0.1; P < .001). In this group, this decrease also positively correlated with their preoperative HOMA-IR (Spearman r = 0.72; P < .001) and, interestingly, we observed a negative correlation between the age of the subjects and the drop in HOMA-IR after surgery (Spearman r = -0.56; P < .05). No changes were observed in the other biochemical parameters that were assessed.

Conclusions: These data suggest that, when combined with abdominoplasty, liposuction does improve insulin resistance in healthy Hispanic females. More studies are warranted to address this possibility.