While weight loss surgery may be a simple and quick fix to obesity and weight problems, it's not the best solution, multiple studies find.
Weight loss surgery is a favored option for the obesity epidemic currently prevalent in the United States. It certainly has an allure. It promises easy answers and a simple fix. But the promises could be false.
This particular kind of surgery is radical and even though complications are comparatively rare, when they happen they're deadly serious. Any op on a fat person is hazardous. The hole created for the surgery is very deep. Special instruments, even special operating tables, are needed. The patient is largely immobile due to the weight. The complications of pneumonia and DVT loom.
There can be nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Then there are complications of any radical surgery: hemorrhage, infection and, in the case of bariatric surgery, septicaemia and organ shutdown and death. Even malnutrition has been reported.
From gastric balloons to gastric banding, the ops aim to cut down the size of the stomach so you desire less food and you eat less.
According to the NHS Information Centre, demand for weight loss operations is rising rapidly. In 2006, there were 858 procedures. These rose tenfold to 8,794 in 2011.
To be eligible for surgery on the NHS, people must have a BMI of over 40, or a BMI between 35 and 40 but also suffering one or more obesity-related diseases, such as diabetes.
NHS hospitals are doubling the number of weight-loss operations and appointing obesity surgeons to keep pace with the flood of morbidly obese patients requiring surgery, plus the "revision" surgical procedures being performed to correct weight-loss operations that go wrong. Revision surgery is known to be the riskiest of all. It's done on very ill patients so has the highest risk of death and long-term illness.
The National Bariatric Surgery Registry suggests serious complications occur in only 2.6 percent of cases with three post-operative in-hospital deaths in 2013 as a result of weight-loss surgery. But a reliable 2012 study put the risks much higher. No fewer than one in 10 operations results in significant problems and at least 29 deaths have occurred over a three-year period.
The inquiry by the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death found that one-third of patients had poor post-op care and monitoring. Bertie Lee, who led the report, says the difficulties are worsened by "lack of thoughtful pre-operative assessment and the failure to do careful post-operative follow-up".
Long-term follow-up is crucial. The report shows many deaths can occur three or more years after surgery.
