In 892 patients who underwent laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy at one Israeli tertiary center (2009-2022), 262 Arab and 630 Jewish, long-term outcomes proved broadly equivalent. Arab patients were younger (35 vs. 44 years) and started with higher BMI (45.1 vs. 42.9), yet %EWL did not differ at 1 or 5 years. A numerically higher 1-year %TWL among Arab patients was not statistically significant and faded later. Remission of diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia was similarly high in both groups.
The practical message is reassuring: sleeve gastrectomy does not appear to work worse in a minority population that often faces disparities in healthcare access and follow-up. That matches the broader bariatric literature, where ethnic differences in outcomes mostly trace back to baseline BMI, comorbidity burden, and adherence rather than biology. Several caveats limit the weight of this paper. It is a retrospective analysis of a single center, so selection effects are likely. Follow-up attrition, a well-known problem in bariatric cohorts, could mask real differences, and Jewish patients attended more visits. The study also reports no mortality or cardiovascular events, so remission rates serve as the proxy for health benefit. For adults weighing surgery for severe obesity, the takeaway is that ethnicity alone should not steer expectations of weight loss or metabolic improvement. This is a confirmatory, incremental finding that adds regional data rather than shifting practice.