Assessment of the Potential Clinical and Economic Impact of Weight Loss in the Adult Population with Obesity and Associated Comorbidities in Spain.

Introduction: Obesity and its complications are associated with high morbidity/mortality and a significant healthcare cost burden in Spain. It is therefore essential to know the potential clinical and economic benefits of reducing obesity. The objective of this study is to predict the decrease in rates of onset of potential complications associated with obesity and the cost savings after a weight loss of 15% over 10 years in Spain.

Methods: Data were combined in an adapted version of a weight loss benefit simulation model. Sources with demographic information on the Spanish population and the distribution of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) were used to obtain the data for the model. In addition, use was made of prevalence data on obesity-associated complications from a cohort of patients with obesity in the United Kingdom (UK). These data were combined by age and sex to create a Spanish synthetic cohort.

Results: The simulation showed that, for a cohort of 100,000 individuals with a body mass index (BMI) of 30-50 kg/m, a weight loss of 15% is estimated to lead to relevant relative risk reductions in obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) (- 56.4%), T2DM (- 39.2%), asthma (- 20.2%) and arterial hypertension (- 18.7%). The estimated overall savings were €105 million for a cohort of 100,000 individuals, mainly resulting from the decrease in T2DM and arterial hypertension (23% and 22% of the total savings at year 10, respectively), as well as osteoarthritis and chronic kidney disease (CKD) (16% and 13%, respectively).

Conclusions: Sustained weight loss could significantly reduce the burden derived from future complications associated to obesity in Spain, as well as the excess economic cost associated with its treatment.