Harmon Co-Leads National Study on Teens’ Weight-Loss Surgery

As co-principal investigator on the $10 million National Institutes of Health study through a multicenter clinical trial on weight-loss surgery, Harmon is involved in the first national effort to assess the short- and longer-term safety and efficacy of bariatric surgery in adolescents.

The NEJM article, "Weight Loss and Health Status 3 Years After Bariatric Surgery in Adolescents," shows significant improvements three years after weight-loss surgery in patients’ weight, cardiovascular and metabolic health, and quality of life markers related to weight.

Patients saw an average weight loss of 27 percent — at least 100 pounds in most cases — and 95 percent saw remission of Type 2 diabetes, 86 percent had abnormal kidney function return to normal and 74 percent had remission of hypertension.

Of the 242 patients, 75 percent were female, mostly aged 15–18 with an average body mass index of 53, indicating extreme obesity.

A report issued in November 2014, based on New York State Department of Health data, stated that 32 percent of children in Erie County are obese or overweight, up 4 percent from 2012.

The benefits of bariatric surgery are relevant to this specific population of teens and the incidence of extreme obesity varies geographically, according to Harmon, who came to UB from the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine.

“Southern states like Mississippi and Alabama always rank high,” Harmon says. “New York as a state is not too bad, but in Western New York it’s a significant problem.”

Harmon is focused on two areas of research — studying the brain receptors that regulate appetite and studying how fat forms.

He is studying mutations in the brain receptors by examining the DNA of obese patients and working to develop ways to correct the mutations through cell culture technology.

Pharmaceutical companies have expressed interest in this work because of the potential for developing a drug that could repair the broken receptor.

Harmon is excited about the connection between his research into the basic science of fat, which he is conducting at UB’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute downtown, and his clinical work on obesity at Women & Children's Hospital of Buffalo (WCHOB).

He is developing a biorepository of tissue and blood specimens to get a better understanding of how fat forms and why.

Harmon was recruited to UB in 2014 as the John E. Fisher Chair in Pediatric Surgery, chief of pediatric surgery and program director of the pediatric surgery fellowship, and to WCHOB as pediatric surgeon-in-chief.