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Prehabilitation Slashes Post-Op Complications By Half, Review Says
- April 30, 2026
- Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter
THURSDAY, April 30, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Eating right and exercising prior to surgery dramatically reduces a person’s odds of complications, a new study says.
Such prehabilitation care cut patients’ post-op complications by almost half, researchers reported April 29 in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
What’s more, patients spent 11% less time recovering in the hospital after their surgery if they engaged in prehabilitation, researchers found.
“These findings support the value of prehabilitation programs in optimizing health for patients, especially those who are at high risk of facing complications or who may benefit from extra support before undergoing surgery,” senior researcher Dr. Justine Lee said in a news release. She’s associate chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.
Prehabilitation is an emerging concept in medicine, researchers said, with more hospitals offering programs in exercise, nutrition and psychological support to help patients prepare for surgery.
For the new study, researchers reviewed 23 prior clinical trials involving more than 2,100 patients who’d participated in prehabilitation programs — 18 focused on exercise and five on nutrition.
Results showed that, overall, the programs reduced post-op complications by 48% and shortened hospital stays by 11%.
The exercise programs seemed to be more effective, researchers found.
Patients who underwent exercise prehabilitation were 55% less likely to suffer complications, while nutrition programs did not reduce risk of complications, the study showed.
However, nutrition programs were associated with 14% shorter hospital stays compared to standard care, researchers found.
“Both nutritional and exercise-based prehabilitation programs can improve recovery after surgery, but each may offer different benefits,” lead researcher Catherine Cascavita, a medical student at UCLA, said in a news release. “More research is needed to determine which type of program works best for individual patients and their specific surgery.”
The type of surgery might have influenced whether these programs were effective, Cascavita said.
Exercise-based programs were most often used in orthopedic surgery, while nutrition programs were primarily used in GI and heart surgeries, Cascavita said.
Future studies should focus on making prehabilitation programs more widely available, by standardizing protocols and reducing barriers like cost and insurance coverage, researchers said.
“We are just beginning to understand how we can improve surgical outcomes before a patient has surgery,” Lee said.
More information
Massachusetts General Hospital has more about prehabilitation.
SOURCES: American College of Surgeons, news release, April 29, 2026; Journal of the American College of Surgeons, April 29, 2026
