The American College of Surgeons (ACS) announced that new research to be presented at its Clinical Congress 2026 will show that underweight patients “face 92% increased odds of death after emergency general surgery.”
The study drew on ACS’ National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) database, which covers more than 334,000 adults who had emergency general surgery between 2019 and 2024. The researchers found that “underweight patients face the highest risk of death, and that those who are both underweight and frail have the worst outcomes, including longer hospital stays and higher readmission rates.”
ACS added that the study also found that “frailty reduces the protective effect of excess weight known as the obesity paradox: compared with normal-weight patients who were not frail, frail patients with obesity had 10% to 65% increased odds of death.”
