Another indicator of extreme obesity involves individuals who undergo treatment with bariatric surgery, acknowledging that factors in addition to severity of obesity contribute to the decision to move forward with an invasive procedure to assist with weight loss. We identified 208 such participants in the UK Biobank testing dataset, of whom 81 (38.9%) carried high GPS. This finding was replicated among 714 severely obese patients treated with bariatric surgery within the Partners HealthCare System (Hatoum et al., 2013; Karlson et al., 2016). 238 of these 714 (33%) patients carried high GPS. A combined analysis of the 922 bariatric surgery participants noted high GPS in 319 (34.6%). Compared with remainder of the distribution, high GPS was associated with a 5.0-fold increased risk of severe obesity treated with bariatric surgery (Figure 3B).
