Metabolic Kidney Transplant Program

While many transplant centers tell people to return when they have lost weight, we know it’s hard to lose weight when you’re experiencing fatigue from dialysis treatments.

That’s why the Kidney Transplant Metabolic Program at Mayo Clinic identifies people with a high BMI early, so we can offer approaches to set you up for success.

Approaches include:

Consultations with our experts about comorbidities, risks, and treatment options.
Bariatric (weight loss) surgery and other supports like dietary resources and mental health care prior to transplant to address BMI and associated conditions.

The Kidney Transplant Metabolic Program leverages Mayo Clinic's multidisciplinary team approach to complex care. Because of our experts’ strong collaboration, you can complete your examinations and testing in two to three days rather than making multiple visits.

After transplant, your team will work with you to prevent the return of associated conditions, such as diabetes, to help you stay healthy.

You will have a whole team of specialists working together for you, including:

Bariatric surgeons
Transplant surgeons
Nephrologists
Endocrinologists
Dietitians
Psychologists
Bariatric nurses
Transplant nurses

Your team will include any Mayo Clinic specialists needed to address comorbidities such as:

Diabetes
Hypertension
Cardiac issues
Arthritis
Sleep apnea
Increased cancer risk
Increased infection rates
Increased frailty

Mayo Clinic's departments of Cardiovascular Medicine and Cardiovascular Surgery routinely are named among the best in the country by U.S. News and World Report, which also ranks our diabetes care No. 1, and rheumatology care No. 4. Mayo Clinic is top-ranked in more specialties than any other hospital, according to U.S. News & World Report.

Kidney Transplant Metabolic Program.

We want to take patients who are obese or have obesity and allow them to get the transplant. What we do here that nowhere else can do is that we can take care of these patients in such a way that we can get them from not a candidate to their transplant and do that in a timeframe that actually is going to improve their overall survival. The transplant metabolic weight-loss program at Mayo Clinic is really structured around multi-disciplinary care for a very unique population of patients. The goal of this program is to have had those patients to get to the transplant as soon as possible with bariatric surgery being the most effective way to do that. You're able to establish that it was a very safe thing to do to perform bariatric surgery on these patients. And what's come out is some really great data that's shown that patients who undergo bariatric surgery actually have a 30% less mortality on dialysis and also have an 80% increased chance of getting their transplant.

Bariatric surgery can induce remission of diabetes and many of our patients can come off blood pressure medications after undergoing bariatric surgery. We've really kind of taken in the team of bariatric surgery, transplant, the bariatrician on the medical side, the dietitians, the physical therapists and hold them together into one team. We have now quite a few patients who have completed the program and now getting a kidney transplant. The ones who have moved on to kidney transplant after their sleeve gastrectomy have done better than patients who didn't never got a sleeve gastrectomy or never got lost weight prior to their transplant. Many of our patients will say, I cannot believe how well I feel, and it's just the next day after the surgery. They're feeling wonderful and it's just something really great to see.

Experts in High-BMI Metabolic Kidney Transplant and Care

Expert care, delivered with compassion.

We’re with you every step of the way.

The leader in transplant medicine.

Kidney Transplant Metabolic Program.

When it's time to find answers, you know where to go.

Contact us to request an appointment.