Life is Healthy

The results were presented today at the 26th annual meeting of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS). The most common side effects included mild to moderate abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. "These results are unparalleled for a non-surgical treatment for obesity," stated Alex Escalona, M.D., Department of Digestive Surgery, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile and lead investigator for the pilot study.


"Like the United States, Chile is struggling with a growing epidemic of obesity and related metabolic disorders and life-threatening conditions. Traditionally, non-surgical treatment approaches have proven insufficient for the morbidly obese, but these data suggest we may have an effective new option to offer these patients.



Read more on: Medical News Today

White women with higher incomes and private health insurance were the most likely to have the surgery, according to a study to be presented Wednesday at the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) annual meeting, in Dallas.
Using data from the 2006 Nationwide Inpatient Sample, sponsored by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, researchers identified 88,000 morbidly obese adults who had bariatric surgery in the United States in 2006.

A Swedish study, published in the Lancet Oncology, has found that female patients who had surgery were 42 per cent less likely to develop cancer. But there was no change to the incidence of cancer in men. The authors, based at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, concluded: 'In our study, the significant reduction in overall cancer incidence in the female surgery group emanated from a variety of cancer types, indicating a broad effect of bariatric surgery.'

Dr Andrew Renehan, of the University of Manchester's School of Cancer, said the findings reinforced the importance of studying the sexes separately.
He said the most likely explanation for the weight-loss surgery in reducing cancer risk was its impact on hormones.

Read more on: Mail Online

This reduces feelings of hunger and allows patients to feel full with less food. Their ongoing clinical trial includes 18 patients with body mass index scores (BMIs) ranging from 30 to 45. A BMI of 30 or more is considered obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nine months after undergoing TGVR, six patients had achieved a mean weight loss of 36.5 lbs. (an average of 34.4 percent of excess weight lost) and a reduction of waist circumference from 48 to 42.2 inches.
Six months after the procedure, the other 12 patients have achieved a mean loss of 27.9 lbs. (an average of 30.4 percent excess weight loss) and a reduction in waist circumference from 46.3 to 41.6 inches.

The REALIZE Band-C has the same clinically proven high-volume, low-pressure system as the original REALIZE Band, but in addition to its new design, it has a 14 percent greater stoma adjustment range to accommodate larger patients. The REALIZE Band-C has a width of 23 mm, making it the widest gastric band available potentially reducing the risk of band slippage.

Nick Nicholson, M.D., weight loss surgeon explains how the surgery can actually improve certain health conditions:

Reversal of Type 2 diabetes
"Because obesity is the primary risk factor for Type 2 diabetes, weight-loss surgery can have a profound impact on the condition," says Dr. Nicholson. Published in the March 2009 issue of The American Journal of Medicine, a study revealed that 82 percent of patients who had weight-loss surgery reversed their diabetes in less than two years, and 62 percent remained diabetes free two years following surgery.


Improved fertility

Although most obese women are not infertile, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, ovulatory functions and pregnancy rates frequently improve significantly after weight loss in obese women.

Improvement or elimination of hypertension
A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004 stated that hypertension was eliminated in 61.7 percent of weight-loss surgery patients and significantly improved in 78.5 percent of patients.

Read more on: Medical News Today

Prospective weight loss surgery candidates can enter the contest online at Dr. Vuong's support group website, http://www.morefrommyband.com/ After signing up for Dr. Vuong's free monthly Lap-Band e-newsletter, entrants will receive a contest registration form via email. Entries must be received by May 1, 2009, after which a panel of judges will review all applications and select five finalists on the basis of their charitable or community service.

Compared with obese people who lost the same amount of weight through diet and exercise, a recent study has found. The study also found that adopting a strict diet and an exercise regimen can produce the same results as bariatric surgery for severely obese people in terms of keeping weight off over the long term.




While both surgical and non-surgical treatments led to considerable loss of weight, those who dieted and exercised had to work harder and over a longer period of time than the stomach-stapling group, according to researchers at the Miriam Hospital's Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine, who published their work in the International Journal of Obesity."Our findings suggest that it's possible to maintain large weight losses through intensive behavioral efforts, such as changing your approach to eating and exercise, regardless of whether you lost weight with bariatric surgery or through non-surgical methods," said lead author Dale Bond.

Read more on: Empowered Doctor

Experts say it can knock up to 20 years off a child's life expectancy. In addition, 60,000 children under 16 are thought to have weight-related metabolic syndrome - a combination of conditions including high blood pressure and raised cholesterol- which is said to be a precursor to type 2 diabetes.



Losing weight can help control the illness but many children cannot stick to the necessary healthy diet and exercise regimes.
Professor Shield believes gastric banding - in which an inflatable silicone ring is fitted around the top part of the stomach to make it smaller - could be the answer.
'The children we see with type 2 diabetes who really struggle to lose weight with other methods have all the health issues that adult diabetics have,' he said yesterday.

Read more on Daily Mail

In a study published in the March 2009 issue of The American Journal of Medicine, investigators analyzed 621 studies from 1990 to April of 2006, which showed that 78.1% of diabetic patients had complete resolution and diabetes was improved or resolved in 86.6% of patients as the result of bariatric surgery.




The primary risk factor for type 2 diabetes is obesity, and 90% of all patients with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese. The dataset included 135,246 patients where 3188 patients reported resolution of the clinical and laboratory manifestations of type 2 diabetes. Nineteen studies with 11,175 patients reported both weight loss and diabetes resolution outcomes separately for the 4070 diabetic patients in those studies. Clinical findings were substantiated by the laboratory parameters of serum insulin, HbA1c, and glucose.

Read more on Medical News Today

"The investigational device could provide a much-anticipated opportunity for Americans ineligible for adjustable gastric banding procedures because they do not have a body mass index of 35 or above," Smith said. "It is a tool that could offer an advantage to obese individuals who have been excluded for years because they don't meet that magic number but who have a desire to lose the weight."

Participants in the study are men and women between 18 and 65 years of age with a body mass index of between 30 and 40 and have at least a two-year history of obesity without success in attempting more conservative weight-reduction alternatives.

Read more on: Yahoo

But those in low socio-economic areas who are most at risk can not access the surgery because it is not available in public hospitals.

Operating on adolescents may seem extreme, the doctors say, but is the best option for some and should be offered with counselling about diet and exercise.

An associate professor from the obesity research unit at Melbourne's Monash University, John Dixon, said that prevention was important but so was treating children who were already obese and suffering.

Read more on: The Sydney Morning Herald

OR-Live will premiere a Sleeve Gastrectomy on February 4, 7:00 PM CST From Davenport, IA. Having already had a malfunctioning gastric band removed, and apprehensive about undergoing a complicated gastric bypass procedure, Ken Croken was looking for another surgical weight loss option. The potential side effects of the Roux-en-Y procedure troubled me," said Croken, vice president of corporate communications and marketing for Genesis Health


System. "And while I felt capable of losing weight, I felt very pessimistic about my ability to maintain a healthy weight for the long term without surgical intervention of some kind."Croken found an alternative, one now offered by his own employer, in a procedure called a sleeve gastrectomy. His surgery will be broadcast on http://www.or-live.com/, premiering Wednesday, Feb. 4, at 7 p.m. CST. The live panel webcast will include Croken, surgeon Matthew Christophersen, M.D., FACS, Medical Director of the Genesis Center for Bariatric Surgery and a partner in the Davenport Surgical Group, and Teresa Fraker, Nurse Manager of the Genesis Center for Bariatric Surgery.


Source: MedicalNewsToday

A less popular form of weight loss surgery appears to be better than the standard type currently done in most centers. For so-called “super obese” patients, it could mean a better result.It’s called the biliopancreatic diverserion with duodenal switch. Like the older surgery, called the roux-en-y bypass (roo-en-y) gastric bypass surgery, it cuts the stomach and diverts the intestine. But this does it differently, resulting in a greater amount of excess body weight that is lost.

According to a pair of studies. The two studies—one from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and a second led by researchers from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, NC—had relatively short follow-up periods of 1 year and 6 months, respectively. Owing to their brevity, neither study found an increased incidence of stones among the patients undergoing the surgery, but both found significant increases in oxalate secretion.

Both also found a supersaturation of calcium oxalate in a number of patients relatively soon after the surgical procedure. "The take-home message from our study is that morbidly obese patients should be counseled regarding the increased risks for kidney stones postoperatively," Bryan Hinck, a former research assistant for senior author Manoj Monga, MD, at the University of Minnesota, told Urology Times. "Not that this should dissuade them from the surgery, but rather inform them of the importance of compliant follow-up."

Hinck is currently a medical student at Rosalind Franklin University's Chicago Medical School.
"Based on our findings, patients who have gastric bypass are at increased risk for forming stones," added Bhavin N. Patel, MD, a Wake Forest urology resident who worked on that group's study with Dean G. Assimos, MD, and colleagues. "Indeed, some are at increased risk of nephropathy and perhaps irreversible kidney damage."

Source: Urology Times

For most of us, the holidays are a non-stop food fest that challenges our resolve to eat healthy. From office parties and cookie exchanges to holiday parties and tasty gifts, the temptations are all around. Holiday challenges are even greater for people who have undergone weight loss surgery. “Because people who have undergone weight loss surgery can only eat a half cup of food at a time, they have to focus on portion control,” said Gregory Barnes, M.D., weight loss surgeon on the medical staff at Baylor All Saints Medical Center in Fort Worth.

Portion restrictions, along with the need to avoid drinking any liquids within 30 minutes of eating, require some special eat-smart strategies for enjoying the holidays. “Although the holidays may challenge their commitment, I believe that weight loss surgery patients can stick with their goals and remain on track if they’ll do some advanced planning,” said Dr. Barnes.

Gastric banding is an important weapon in the war chest of the bariatric surgeon - but it typically requires five incisions and a considerable recovery time. But a new technique just coming into use needs just a single incision to accomplish the task of gastric banding, that is, tying off the top portion of the stomach so that food flow is restricted and slowed down. When the small, top part of the stomach is full, it signals the brain, which tells the body it's no longer hungry.

This can lead to large reductions in weight for the morbidly obese, who are the only category of patients allowed to undergo the surgery.

With the new procedure, a single incision is made in the navel. Therefore, it's not surprising that the new surgery is called single-incision laparoscopic surgery (SILS). Laparoscopic refers to a device with a video camera attached that's inserted through the incision to allow the doctor to see inside the abdominal cavity.

"SILS is an important new option that holds the potential of less pain, fewer scars and quicker recovery," explained Shawn Garber, chief of bariatric surgery at Mercy Medical Center on Long Island, who also heads the New York Bariatric Group. "And most patients report that they can barely notice the single incision hidden in the bellybutton."

The procedure is completed using a special camera to see around obstructions and special graspers with a curved tip.

"There's a current revolution in minimally invasive surgery: Can we make laparoscopic surgery better by decreasing the number of incisions?" said Dr. Daniel Scott, associate professor of surgery and director of the Center for Minimally Invasive Surgery at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. "The theory behind this, not yet proven, is that fewer scars are better cosmetically and for pain control. The pain may be less because you alleviate additional cuts, and therefore the recovery may be hastened."

Source: Empowered Doctor

If you're obese and have tried every diet imaginable, sticking to it faithfully, and still can't lose the excess poundage, you might be a candidate for weight-loss surgery. To qualify, a prospective patient must satisfy certain criteria. First, a person's body mass index, or BMI, must be at least 40 - or he or she must weigh at least 100 pounds more than his or her ideal weight.

Those with a BMI of 40 or more are considered morbidly obese. If you have a body mass index of 35-39, you're classified as severely obese. A doctor will still perform weight-loss surgery on you, but only if you have at least one serious medical condition accompanying your weight problem. These conditions include diabetes, sleep apnea, hypertension, depression and high cholesterol.

Second, you need to be a person who makes healthy lifestyle choices. These include not smoking, not drinking to excess, and avoiding drug abuse. People who are used to making good lifestyle decisions have the best chances for success with weight-loss surgery.

Third, you as a prospective patient must demonstrate commitment and willpower in your life. You must be able to adhere to a diet no matter what, and stick to an exercise regimen come what may. These accompaniments to weight-loss surgery are permanent lifestyle changes that must be adopted as lifelong habits if the surgery is to be successful.

Only with these qualifications will a bariatric surgeon accept a patient for weight-loss surgery.

Source: Empowered Doctor