Lap Band Patients Continue to Lose Weight Over Years

I just checked in with Dr. Chris Oliver, my favorite Lap Band blogger. He’s 16 months post-banding and has lost 55% of his excess weight. He’s riding in bicycle tournaments, competing in triathalons and he looks great. If you haven’t read his Lap Band blog, by all means, check in. Being a physician, he writes with a level of detail and precision we don’t get with most Lap Band bloggers.

Anyway, he’s blogging about a Lap Band study out of Lebanon that followed 591 patients with an average BMI of 41.95 (that’s our 5′4″ woman at 235 and our 5′11″ man at 290) that had a Lap Band procedure. Fifty-one of the patients wound up having their Lap Bands removed. The researchers followed their weight loss for up to ten years. After the first year, the patients had lost, on average, 66% of their excess weight. At the end of the second year, they had lost, on average, 72% of their excess weight. At the end of four years, 75.9%. And, most delightfully, at the end of six years they had lost, on average, 82.8% of their excess weight! How exciting to learn that people continue to lose as time goes on.

If you want to check your BMI, you may do so here. For the newbies, most insurance standards require that you have a BMI of 35 with at least two co-morbidities - meaning high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep apnea or high cholesterol before they will cover it. If you have a BMI over 40, usually you don’t need the co-morbidities. I have a link to a list of the standards for several dozen insurance companies here.

Forum For Lap Bands and Teens

I was just looking around Lap Band Talk - an absolutely superb forum for people interested in Lap Bands - and discovered that thave a forum for teenagers who have questions about Lap Bands. The youngest bandee is fifteen though I know surgeons are doing Lap Band procedures on adolescents as young as twelve.

If you’re a parent of a teenager wrestling with obesity, some of the surgeons with New Hope Bariatrics work with teens as do several of the clinics in Mexico. Before you get the willies about going out of country for surgery on your child, just know that most of the surgeons who do Lap Band procedures in the US were actually trained by doctors from Mexico. Dr. Rumbaut, Dr. Ariel Ortiz, and Dr. Lopez Corvala all have a vast amount of experience working with Lap Bands.

Here’s a very brief assessment of a study on teens and Lap Bands, just in case you’re nervous that it’s completely inappropriate.

Successful Long Term Weight Loss With The Lap Band

Diets and exercise just don’t work - let’s face it. Fewer than 5% of people who lose weight through diet and exercise manage to keep it off. There are reasons for this, as I have written about before, that have nothing to do with self-discipline. You can’t lose weight and keep it off for some very sturdy evolutionary reasons - your body likes having all that handy-dandy energy just packed away for a rainy day. Or more precisely, a non-rainy season. So when you lose weight, after a certain amount, your body starts cranking down your metabolism. Youve been losing weight on 1200 calories a day? No more. That fifteen pounds you’ve lost that has you feeling svelte is gonna come right back, if your body has any say over the situation. And your body does have say over the situation. So, your metabolism goes down and your hunger level goes up. Your body floods you with chemicals that make you feel hungrier than you’ve ever felt. Oh, you think you’re just being undisciplined and you feel guilty for eating. But that’s not what’s happening. Your body is pushing you to eat, eat, eat, and it’s slowing your metabolism down so that you can pack the weight right back on. Good bye, little red dress. Hello, big black dress. Have you ever stood in the kitchen eating something, hating yourself for eating it because you’re actually losing weight, but you can’t stop because you’re so darn hungry? That’s normal. That’s your body functioning as it should. The curious thing is that obese people’s bodies functions normally when they’re heavy and their bodies cease to function normally when they lose weight. Factor in that we now know that around 75% of weight gain is genetic, and we’re all in a dire situation.

Look, there are lots of reasons to lose weight besides vanity - you’ll live longer. And if you’re like most people, you have family who love you and want you to live as long as possible. That right there is good reason to do it. You’ll be happier. And more physically comfortable. And you’ll probably earn more money. And have more sex. So with all those motivations, if losing weight was really possible, you would do it. Some of us master the literally Sisyphean task of weight loss and peel off 120 pounds or maybe more. But then, because of biological imperatives, we gain it back again. Over and over.

That’s where Lap Bands come in. Dr. Favretti, one of the first surgeons to work with Lap Bands, completed a 12 year study on the effectiveness of Lap Bands and the news is good - people don’t gain the weight back. The study covered over 1700 patients over twelve years both morbidly obese and super obese. The average weight of the patients started out around 260 pounds plus or minus 37 pounds with an average BMI of 42.6 - that’s our 5′3″ woman at 236 pounds or our 5′10″ guy at 292 pounds. At the end, they weighed on average 185 pounds plus or minus 60 pounds with an average BMI of 31.6 - putting our woman at 175 pounds and our man at 216.

If you want to check your BMI, you can do so here at the Centennial Treatment Center For Obesity in Nashville, Tennessee.

I know all of you reading this think, “Oh no, I want to lose a lot more weight than that!” Well, of course you do, and as far as I can tell, you can. You do have to exercise though and to make that point, I’m going to quote Dr. William Lee of Blue Earth, Minnesota in the Mankato Free Press:

Lee said his patients can be divided into two groups, those who shed 6 to 8 pounds a month and patients who lose 10 to 15 pounds a month. “The difference between these two groups,” he said, “is exercise.”

So, just keep that in mind - you’re gonna have to buy a trampoline, a pair of Nordic Walking Poles or get yourself a backyard treadmill. And if you do, and if you follow the doctor’s directions, and get yourself into a support group, you’re going to have a really good shot at getting down to the tiny little person you’d really rather be.

Study Looking For Obese Teens For Lap Band

I know I have a lot of people checking to find out whether Lap Bands are appropriate for adolescents. I’ve featured several stories about kids who have lost a tremendous amount of weight with Lap Bands and are much happier for it. The key is that you must be serious about losing weight and be capable of eating reasonably.

If you’re a teenager in Southern California, and you’re interesting in having a Lap Band procedure, UCSD may be looking for you.

Millions of adults have turned to surgery when diet and exercise don’t work. Now, with childhood obesity sharply on the rise, researchers are exploring whether surgery may be a viable option for teens. As part of a multi-center clinical trial, UCSD Medical Center will evaluate whether or not a minimally invasive procedure called gastric banding is a safe and effective weight loss treatment in obese adolescents ages 14-17.
“Gastric banding is known to be highly successful in adults. The question to answer is whether or not the procedure can help morbidly obese teens, who on average are overweight by more than 100 pounds,” said Santiago Horgan, M.D., director of the UCSD Center for the Treatment of Obesity. “Over a period of five years, we will closely monitor the patient’s weight, in addition to their overall health and well being.”

Here is the short version of what they are looking for:

The nationwide study population will consist of 150 adolescents recruited from seven weight management centers. Twenty two participants will be recruited at UCSD Medical Center. Potential participants must demonstrate a history of obesity for at least two years and have failed more conservative non-surgical weight-reduction alternatives such as a supervised diet, exercise, and behavior modification programs.

And here is their contact info along with a statement of purpose by the researching physician:

“By addressing obesity at an early age, we may be able to avoid life-threatening conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and depression,” said Horgan who has performed more than 1,000 gastric banding procedures. “In the long run this could potentially save billions of dollars now spent on obesity related healthcare.”

UCSD Medical Center has a comprehensive program dedicated to the holistic treatment of obesity. Through a compassionate team approach, patients and their families are offered leading-edge medical care combined with nutritional training, fitness counseling, and psychological support.

To learn more about the gastric banding clinical trial for adolescents, including potential risks and side effects, call UCSD Medical Center at 619-471-0447 or email misresearch@ucsd.edu.

This press release is from last summer, so the program may be full already, but it seems to me that if you’re a teenager who needs to lose over 100 pounds, it would be more than worth it to contact them and see what the story is.

Lap Band and Insulin Resistance

Here’s an interesting study from a year ago. For those of you who are pre-diabetic, I think you’ll be interested.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - After having “lap band” surgery for weight loss, men and women show large increases in sensitivity to the blood-sugar-regulating hormone insulin — even if they remain obese — a new study shows.

From Dr. Joan Carroll, at the University of North Texas Health Science Center (can you imagine what their business cards look like?) in Fort Worth:

To investigate, Carroll and her team have been following 37 lap band patients for up to one year. Those followed for six months have lost 23 kilograms (51 pounds), on average, while average weight loss for those who have been followed for a year is 34 kg (75 pounds).

Their level of insulin resistance had fallen by 60 percent after six months, she told Reuters Health, even though the patients remained clinically obese.

Given that resistance to insulin greatly increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, which has a number of other health consequences including heart disease and even amputations, “over the long term it’s really a benefit for all the body systems,” Carroll said.

Lorraine Kay, in her interview, talks about needing 120 units of insulin a day and that, of course, made losing weight impossible. Her diabetes is in full remission.

From a study at the University of Illinois at Chicago, we find out just how quickly patients get to leave insulin behind:

For example, nearly all patients stopped requiring insulin injections by postoperative day 2, owing to caloric restriction, he said.

Now, admittedly, you’re living on soup broth and there’s nothing there to toy with your blood sugar. Still, for people who live with injecting themselves, to learn that there is way to reliably lose weight and that insulin injections can cease almost immediately is very good news.

And, of course, there’s the other good news we already know:

Hadar Spivak, MD, from Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, reported on the health effects of this procedure in a separate study involving 535 patients. After at least 16 months of follow-up, Dr. Spivak and colleagues observed statistically significant improvements in gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, asthma, and diabetes (P < .05).

These researchers assessed the health impact of the procedure by monitoring changes in medication use. “We’ve been asked whether decreased medication is a good way to judge this,” Dr. Spivak said. “We think it is, because we are independent of the primary care physician; they have full control [over patient medication].”

And then there is that 72% decrease in the risk of dying for obese people who have a Lap Band procedure.

Lap Bands and Pregnancy

I just received this press release from New Jersey’s Bariatric Center’s Dr. Ajay Goyal on bariatric surgery and pregnancy. He says that pregnancy is safe for a Lap Band patient six months after surgery, though there may not have been enough weight loss in that time frame to prevent obesity related complications. Lastly, he says nutritional supplements are a necessity since you will be eating such small amounts of food.

New Jersey Bariatric Center’s Ten Guidelines to Follow for a Safe Pregnancy Post-Surgery:
1. Avoid pregnancy for one year after weight loss surgery
2. Take multivitamins (Vitamin A, B1, B12, Iron, Folic Acid)
3. Make regular appointments with your bariatric surgeon and obstetrician
4. Obtain regular blood test to check for vitamin deficiency
5. Eat multiple small meals a day (at least four meals per day) and spend 30 minutes to eat each meal
6. Eat high-protein, low-carbohydrates and a low fat diet
7. Take 30 grams of proteins in supplements
8. Drink plenty of water (40 – 60 ounces per day)
9. Continue regular low impact exercise for both body and mind
10. For lap band or realize band patients, one can remove the restriction by an adjustment if patients develop pregnancy related nausea.

Anyway, this is very good news and expected.

Lap Bands and Open Clinical Studies

The National Institute of Health maintains a website that links to thousands of open medical studies that are looking for participants. I thought I’d post the link and maybe someone will find a study that helps pay for part of their surgery, or provides the surgery entirely. Wouldn’t that be nice? I’d search “Lap Bands”, gastric banding, laparoscopic gastric banding and bariatric surgery.

Teens and Lap Bands

This is interesting - a study being done involving 150 morbidly obese teenagers who are having Lap Band procedures to see if gastric banding is an effective means for dealing with teen obesity. I can’t imagine much worse than being an obese teen - it’s painful enough when you’re trim.

The nationwide study population will consist of 150 adolescents recruited from seven weight management centers. Twenty two participants will be recruited at UCSD Medical Center. Potential participants must demonstrate a history of obesity for at least two years and have failed more conservative non-surgical weight-reduction alternatives such as a supervised diet, exercise, and behavior modification programs.

“By addressing obesity at an early age, we may be able to avoid life-threatening conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and depression,” said Horgan who has performed more than 1,000 gastric banding procedures. “In the long run this could potentially save billions of dollars now spent on obesity related healthcare.

On Dr. Ortiz‘ site, he has a testimonial from Cassie, a 13 year old girl who has had a lap band procedure, and who was apparently on the Oprah Winfrey show this year. Hopefully, I can find something on YouTube later. His Obesity Control Center will perform surgeries on people from 13 up. They have a host of psychological tests they put the kids through, and go from there. They also have a support group just for kids as well.

The Northwest Weight Loss Surgery Center has a study that has been going on for a couple years now.

“It took more than a year to get our study approved, but since then, it’s gone very well.”

The FDA approved the procedure for adults in June 2001.

By this year, it was all Drs. Kevin Montgomery and Brad Watkins, weight-loss-surgery specialists, wanted to perform.

“We sat around one day saying we would never let someone in our family have gastric-bypass surgery performed on them, so why were we still doing it?” Watkins said. “With gastric bypass, you have to stay overnight in the hospital, and [Lap-Band surgery] is done laparoscopically as an outpatient procedure.”

The two recently opened the Northwest Weight Loss Surgery center, performing Lap-Band surgeries on adults. Seeing the problem of obesity in children, the two decided to join NYU, the Minimally Invasive Bariatric Center in Chicago and other facilities in conducting studies on youths.

The same basic standards apply to kids as apply to adults, however, in the case of the teens, the doctors are performing the surgeries at the hospital rather than at the surgery center.

The Northwest Weight Loss Surgery center will conduct up to 50 surgeries on youths 16 and 17 who have a body-mass index (BMI) of 40 or higher, or a BMI of 35 with a serious health problem related to obesity. The index is a height-to-weight ratio that provides a rough estimate of body fat. A normal BMI is about 25.

The center expects to perform the operations on youths over three to five years. Locally, though most adult Lap-Band surgeries are completed at the center, one requirement of the study is that all adolescent procedures be completed at the Kirkland hospital.

One of the things we do is confuse obesity with immorality. We see excess weight, even in children, as evidence of moral failure and dump enormous amounts of shame on the obese. It’s sadistic, literally. Shaming people for situations they have very little control over is incredibly manipulative and destructive. To my mind, the more kids we can pull out of that cycle early, the better we are as a culture.

I’m going to do more reading on teenagers and Lap Bands. This is interesting stuff.

Sending Diabetes Into Remission With Lap Band Surgery

Lots of interesting stuff in this article from Myrtle Beach Online - it even addresses the mortality rate of an experienced gastric band surgeon versus an inexperienced one (hint - make sure your surgeon has performed more than 20 procedures). Mostly, though, it’s about how effective weight loss surgery is at sending diabetes into remission, and how much safer the Lap Band procedure is as opposed to the gastric bypass procedure. Lap band procedures have a success rate of 76 percent curing diabetes II.

Four years ago, Dr. Donald Balder of Conway Medical Center’s Weight Loss Center began performing weight loss surgery to treat diabetes in patients.

A recent landmark study out of Australia provides the strongest evidence yet that weight-loss surgery can send Type II diabetes into remission.

The Journal of the American Medical Association published the results of a study in January that stated patients who underwent surgery to reduce their stomach size were five times more likely to witness a disappearance in their diabetes over the next two years than patients undergoing standard c

That’s impressive. Patients who undergo weight loss surgery are five times as likely to see a remission in their diabetes as people who use standard treatment - ie, drugs, diet and exercise.

What I didn’t know was that a lot of doctors had concerns that since the Lap Band procedure is so much less dramatic than gastric bypass that it might not work as well. However, that has proven to not be the case.

According to Balder, many doctors felt that the newer lap-band procedure, which has been done in Australia for more than a decade, wouldn’t resolve diabetes as effectively as gastric bypass surgery.

“We feel as though there’s some sort of hormonal changes that go on when we staple the stomach, which is why they didn’t think the band would cause the same changes,” he said.

“But the band has caused the same changes without the increased risk of death and all of the complications of weight loss surgery.”

And:

Gastric bypass, which has been studied extensively in the United States, has a cure rate for Type II diabetes of about 84 percent.

Susan Michaels of Loris is a local patient whose diabetes is now remission and who is off insulin.

One of these patients is Susan Michaels of Loris, who had Type II diabetes for five years and took insulin as well as two types of blood pressure medication. After finding that dieting and exercising proved unsuccessful in her attempts at weight loss, Michaels read about the link between diabetes and weight-loss surgery in the newspaper.

“I turned 50 last year and just thought after 25 years of being obese I needed to do something other than what I have done,” she said. Since her lap-band surgery at the Weight Loss Center in May, Michaels has lost 54 pounds and no longer needs insulin.

“It’s a wonderful feeling to no longer need diabetes medication. I exercise easier and eat so much less than I did before banding. I am now down to one blood pressure medication and may be off that by the end of the month,” Michaels said.

“I do not have to say I’m diabetic anymore. I feel so much better about my health and am still working on losing even more weight,” Michaels said

And the numbers are here:

Blood tests showed diabetes remission in 22 of the 29 surgery patients after two years and an average weight loss of 46 pounds, while only four of the 26 patients in the standard care-group eliminated their diabetes, losing an average of three pounds.

“This new study that comes out of Australia is very remarkable in that it has a nearly 76 percent cure rate for Type II diabetes, which is an extraordinarily high cure rate for a difficult disease,” Balder said.

And for people who are lower weight and have Class 1 diabetes, it’s even more effective. One hundred percent of those people saw their disease remission. Insurance isn’t likely to pay for that now, but hopefully, with enough people challenging that, it will change.

Weight-loss surgery can help patients with Class I diabetes, or a body mass index of 30 to 34.9, and Class II diabetes, or a body mass index of 35 to 39.9, although weight-loss surgery is currently focused on morbidly obese patients, Balder said.

“Another study in Australia done on people with Class 1 diabetes showed that folks who had lap band at that weight all lost their diabetes, but unfortunately we haven’t gotten insurance to pay for that smaller weight category here yet,” Balder said.

It has taken me a few weeks to cover this, but it did need to be covered. Diabetes is terrible disease. Both my mother and my grandfather died in their early sixties from heart disease because of it - it’s not to be taken lightly. Lorraine Kay, whose interview I will have up today, is legally blind because of her diabetes. The costs to that disease are tremendous. This research is very, very good news.

It’s a beautiful day in Los Angeles. The sky is that bright, bright blue and the sunlight is beaming off the clouds. Flowers are blooming like mad and it’s baby plant green everywhere you look. The wind is a bit brisk, so allergies are acting up everywhere. But I’m going out for a walk and it should be a lovely one. I hope you get a nice nature break as well.

Spouses and Weight Loss Surgery

Now, here’s something I’d never thought about - spouses are frequently threatened by impending weight loss surgery. This is an article from ObesityHelp that runs down the issues spouses face.

“I just don’t understand it,” Dawn said. “Why doesn’t my husband want me to have the surgery?” Tammy agreed. Her spouse was also unsupportive: “My husband said, ‘Just keep trying new diets—you should be able to lose weight. This surgery is too risky and doesn’t make sense

Uh oh.

They’re worried you might stop loving them
Howard said, “I was worried about how our social life would change. Would she still find me acceptable?” Bruce echoed this by saying, “I was used to having a wife that looked a certain way and I was fine with it. I didn’t know what would change for her or for me after the surgery.” Mike cited statistics: “I’d heard how many people get divorced after weight loss surgery and I didn’t want that to happen to us.”

Oh, okay, here we go. Fears can be allayed with information.

Dr. Kelli Friedman and her colleagues at Duke University’s Weight Loss Surgery Center have found little to no valid research suggesting that WLS patients are more likely than others to get divorced.

And here’s what the doctors have to say:

You can help your spouse by discussing your plans and how you can work together. If you won’t be drinking alcohol after surgery, how will this affect your time with your spouse and your friends? Have a conversation where you say, “You know, I really want to keep doing the fun things we love to do. I’ve been thinking about our Friday night happy hours—let’s still go, but I’ll have a sparkling water and you can have a glass of wine. What do you think?” Together, come up with plans for several of your favorite “rituals” that will work for both of you. If you’re nervous about triggering emotional eating, say that too: “Honey, I’d love to go to the Cake Factory, but right now, I think it’s going to be too hard for me to eat there. How about the Crab Shack?”

And this to me is the heart of the article:

What spouses need is good, honest information. Mike attended a support group with his wife and asked questions; Bruce went with his wife to meet her surgeon and talked to the clinic team about what to expect. Howard explained that he needed time to process the information he was receiving, and that an ObesityHelp conference was where “the light switch came on for me to get on board with the decision

Anyway, take a look. I”m going to see if I can run down the Kelli Friedman study about divorce and weight loss surgery, and I’ll report back to you if I do.

…Works Better Than A 500 Calorie Diet!

yeah, baby, cuz I been on 500 calorie diets and they are no fun.

Alright, i don’t know how missed this study. This is good to see.

Researchers at Monash University Medical School in Melbourne, Australia, recruited 80 patients who were on average 52 pounds over a healthy weight. Half had the laparoscopic adjustable gastric band surgery.

The other half followed a medical program that included a variety of strategies such as a very-low-calorie diet (500 calories a day) with liquid meal replacements, prescription weight-loss medication and behavioral therapies.

And guess what we found out? The patients with lap band kept the weight off and the dieters didn’t.

After six months, both the surgery patients and the low-calorie dieters lost an average of 14 percent of their starting weight.

- After two years, the gastric band patients lost 22 percent of their starting weight. That was about 87 percent of their excess weight, or roughly 45 pounds. They also showed marked improvement in their health and quality of life.

- At the end of two years, the dieters had regained much of their lost weight but were still 5.5 percent below their starting weight. They had lost 22 percent of their excess weight, or about 12 pounds.

Lap bands allow you to get around the weight set point issue. After you’ve dieted a few pounds away, your body starts cranking your metabolism and it becomes harder and harder to lose weight - you’ve experienced this, no doubt. Unfortunately, it becomes easier and easier to put weight on and as soon as you stop dieting, your weight keeply rebounds to where it was before. But with weight loss surgery, the crank down in metabolism doesn’t happen and so you lose weight and you keep it off. Once you stabilize at given weight, you have the ability to stay there. That’s the key, right there.

Happy Saturday, folks. Now I’ve got a video interview to go finish cutting.

Lap Bands Save Lives! Live Longer! Be Happy!

Hmmmm, maybe you can get your grandparents to pay for it.

From the December 2007 Annals of Surgery:

2007 DEC 3 - (NewsRx.com) — Severely obese people who received the LAP-BAND Adjustable Gastric Banding System to lose weight had a 72 percent reduction in their risk of dying compared to obese people who were not offered any specific weight-losstreatment, according to findings published in the December issue of the Annals of Surgery. The LAP-BAND System was approved in June 2001 by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration for weight reduction in severely obese adults.

Got that? Seventy two percent decrease in the risk of dying. Seventy two percent. Wow.

“This research is critical because it shows that people with severe obesity, who are known to be at a much higher risk than the general population for dying prematurely, may be
able to significantly decrease their risk with laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding,” explains Dr. Paul O’Brien, FRACS a study author from the Monash University Centre for Obesity Research and Education (CORE) in Melbourne, Australia, head of the Centre for Bariatric Surgery in Melbourne and the National Medical Director for the American Institute of Gastric Banding in Dallas, Texas. “What is also particularly compelling is that this study shows it is possible to gain a significant survival benefit without the risks associated with more invasivebariatric surgical procedures, such as gastric bypass.”

And here’s the numbers on the study:

The study involved two groups of people who were between 37 and 70 years of age with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 35 or greater: A LAP-BAND System group, which included 966 patients (average age 47, average BMI 45 ) and a previously established population-based cohort of 2119 people who were not offered any specific weight-loss treatment (average age 55, average BMI). There were four deaths (heart disease, cancer(2) and suicide) in the LAP-BAND System group after a median follow-up of four years, vs. 225 deaths after a median follow-up of 12 years in the non-treated group. After statistically controlling for the differences in follow up time, sex, age and BMI, the hazard for death was 72 percent lower for LAP-BAND System patients compared to the non-treated group (hazard ratio for death: 0.28, 95% confidence interval: 0.10-0.85). LAP-BAND System patients lost an average of approximately 63 pounds 2 years after installation.

I, for one, would very much like to lose 63 pounds and live longer.

And more from a press release on the study:

The study showed that LAP-BAND patients lost greater amounts of weight and saw a reduction in the metabolic syndrome, a condition in obese people where insulin levels are too high and which puts people at greater risk of problems such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension and abnormal blood lipid levels, than non-surgical patients-at no additional adverse risk.

Here’s good news for our only slightly chunky friends:

“Currently, the generally accepted practice is to perform weight-loss surgery only on the severely and morbidly obese,” said Professor O’Brien. “But these positive results suggest that physicians should re-examine the guidelines for weight-loss surgery to determine if they should be expanded to include mild to moderately obese patients.”

And the reduction in metabolic syndrome? Well….

In addition to losing weight, the metabolic syndrome was significantly more likely to be resolved after two years in the surgical group than the non-surgical group. At the start of the study, metabolic syndrome was present in 38 percent of members of the surgical and non-surgical groups. At the end of the study, only 3 percent of laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding patients and 24 percent of non-surgical patients presented with metabolic syndrome.

Here’s the “Be Happy” part:

While both groups reported improvements in quality of life, participants who received the laparoscopic adjustable gastric band reported greater improvements.

And here it is again - the dieters lose weight, but they cannot keep it off. Right here in this study one more time:

The extent of weight loss was equal for both groups at 6 months, but then the non-surgical group regained weight that had been lost while surgical patients continued to lose and were continuing to lose through the study’s conclusion.

The average surgical patient’s body mass index (BMI) went from 33.7 at the beginning of the study to 26.4 after 2 years. The non-surgical group’s BMI was reduced from an average of 33.5 at the beginning of the study to 31.5 at the study’s conclusion.

It’s hard to get around. A 72% decrease in the risk of dying is very, very big deal. To be able to get rid of metabolic syndrome, and to have a better quality of life while living longer - what is that worth?