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• Obesity
• Complications of Obesity
• California cosmetic surgery loan
Here you will find what we think is the most comprehensive
site on obesity and overweight on the Internet. Obesity
is not a simple condition of eating too much. It is now
recognized that obesity is a serious, chronic disease.
No human condition — not race, religion, gender,
ethnicity or disease state — compares to obesity
in prevalence and prejudice, mortality and morbidity,
sickness and stigma. Decrease in health care costs result
with obseity surgery.
* Read the abstract from the research study, The Impact
of Weight Reduction Surgery on Health-Care Costs in Morbidly
Obese Patients by JS Stampalis and colleagues
www.obesity.org
The American Society for Bariatric Surgery, based in Gainesville,
said 140,000 people in the United States had some sort
of weight-loss surgery last year, most of them gastric
bypass -- reducing the size of the stomach to limit food
intake. The number has grown by about 50 percent a year
since 1998.
Doctors estimate that elderly people make up 1 percent
to 2 percent of the total, but they expect that percentage
to grow.
A study last year in the Journal of the American Geriatric
Society estimated obesity in those age 60 and older will
increase from 32 percent in 2000 to 37 percent in 2010.
Many private insurance companies cover bariatric surgery
for obesity, finding it cheaper than long-term treatment
of obesity-related health problems, such as diabetes and
high blood pressure. Cost of the surgery
for obesity starts at about $20,000.
Surgical procedures result in weight loss by restricting
the size of the stomach or by bypassing a portion of the
intestines. Restricting the size of the stomach limits
the quantity of food a patient can consume at a single
meal. Malabsorptive (bypass) procedures decrease the proportion
of nutrients that are absorbed from a meal. Gastric banding
achieves weight loss by creating gastric restriction.
Surgical
treatment is more effective than nonsurgical treatment
for weight loss and the control of some comorbidities
in patients with a body mass index of 40 kg/m 2 or greater.
More data are needed to confirm or refute the relative
efficacy of surgery for less severely obese persons. Perioperative
mortality rates of less than 1 percent have been achieved
by some surgeons and surgical centers. The perioperative
mortality rates in other settings may be higher. Surgical
treatment is associated with a substantial number of complications
and adverse events, although most of these are minor.
www.ahrq.gov/clinic/epcsums/obesphsum.htm
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